John Schettler with Mark A. Prost

TOUCHSTONE

A NOVEL IN TIME

Part I

Arrival

“The Chief malady of man is a restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.”

— Pascal: Pensées

1

It was scarcely less cold on the street than passing through the Arch. Nordhausen shivered in his heavy overcoat. It occurred to him that his clothes seemed to be completely frozen, much colder than the air, perhaps an effect of the time travel. He rubbed himself vigorously, trying to put some body heat back into the linen, wool and fur that a prosperous gentleman wore against the damp chill. The air was sour, acid, with heavy drops of floating moisture. He had never thought about how a pea soup fog would smell. Welcome to the industrial revolution, he thought.

There was no doubt, this was not the Cretaceous. Kelly couldn’t have botched the numbers this time, because he didn’t even know about this trip! Yes, Nordhausen had promised never to do anything of this sort again, but really… What harm could come of a little visit to Old London—just a sightseeing tour; a brief weekend? He would hardly be gone from Berkeley half an hour and they wouldn’t even miss him. That was the plan and, without any nonsense from Kelly and Maeve, everything would be just fine. This time he was spot on target, obviously in London, on a sidewalk, along a short street surrounded by generous four story buildings faced with stone, marble and plaster. Gas streetlamps shone feebly through the fog in the late afternoon, hazing over the view ahead. Dusk came early in this northern latitude, he reminded himself.

The city was noisy! A racket of wheeled traffic jostled on some nearby invisible block, and he was conscious of the susurrus of human activity that the vast city generated. There were no cars, but he realized what a lot of noise people made underneath the roar of city traffic.

In spite of his excitement, Maeve sat on his shoulder like a bothersome crow. He knew exactly what she would say if she ever found out about this mission. “What on earth were you thinking?… You did what?…”

Nonetheless, the die was cast, he was here for forty-eight hours, so he had better do what he could to avoid causing any problems, like forestalling the First World War or some other calamitous event. He didn’t see how he could change the Meridian if he simply laid low and went about his business as quietly as possible. He knew Maeve wouldn’t buy any of these rationalizations, and that was making him very careful.

Yes, he knew he had joined his hand with those of the other three team members to give his solemn oath. He could hear Maeve’s words, still whispering in his mind even now: “…I’ll say this: if we don’t shut this thing down, and I don’t see how we can with this war business, then we weigh in on the side of Mother Time… We know how things are now. It’s the world we believe to be our own—at least I do. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need something to hold onto each day; something I can use to make sense of the world. There’s enough uncertainty out there as it is. If we get involved, it must be to preserve the past as we know it now—to put a stop to this time war by foiling their efforts, if we can… only we do it with more sense and direction. We keep watch, and we plan, and we get it all right. Understand?”

Maeve’s point was well taken, but there was a thrill to time travel that she didn’t seem to embrace. Perhaps the brief experience she had while running Kelly’s first “Spook Job” to find Paul had not been enough to get her hooked. She hadn’t really time traveled—at least not to a place where she could open her eyes and breath in the air of a new world. She hadn’t camped under Jurassic skies or shared a meal with men who had died before she was born. And he was willing to bet she hadn’t opened her eyes during that first brief jump either.

Still, there was something to be said for her logic about the situation now. Time war! The thought still sent shivers along Nordhausen’s spine, and the London fog was quick to reinforce them. He drew his overcoat about him tighter, still thinking about something Maeve had said.

We know how things are now… Was that so? The thought that unseen adversaries from the future were creeping along the deep Meridians of time was more than unnerving—it was terrifying. What might they be about? If Paul’s experience after his haphazard stumble into that cavern in the Jordanian Desert was any guide, they were up to a great deal. That nest of Assassins had been festering away in the year 1187 and planning to meddle with the history of the Crusades! Might there be other nests; other key Nexus Points on the Meridian where the Assassins were setting up new operations?

Time war…

Maeve was quite correct. In order to fight that kind of battle one had to have some clear hold on the world before they set to meddling and changing things. Kelly’s RAM bank, and the nifty Golem program he devised to constantly monitor the Web, was a step in the right direction. To tamper with history you needed something, anything, as a sure reference point to measure your success or failure. The first mission, when they struggled to reverse the Palma disaster, they had to rely on their own living memory of Lawrence’s narrative in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Now, with Kelly’s RAM bank functioning as a kind of constant memory, they had some hold on the moment, some tether on the way things were supposed to be. Surely the Assassins would have faced this problem as well. What were they using? What was their reference point?

That thought brought Robert back to the intent of his mission. Yes, he had always wanted to see old London, but there was more to his weekend plans than a simple jaunt through the foggy streets of Dickens’ era. No, Paul said something that got him thinking, and he was following up his hunch before he brought all this to the others. “…we’ve got our Arch, and Kelly’s Golems, and the RAM bank idea gives us a good touchstone on the history. Now we stand the watch.” Robert remembered how they all nodded agreement, but he was soon thinking about Paul’s last statement.

A touchstone, he mused. While he waited out those anxious hours in the Jordanian desert he had encountered a man named Rasil, the Messenger, as he called himself. Apparently, this fellow had intended to take a little jump through the cavern they had stumbled upon in Wadi Rumm. What an ingenious idea! The technology of the Arch required enormous energy and computing power to work its magic but, somehow, the Assassins had figured a low tech way to achieve the same result. They used the quirky nature of a strange bacterium with an appetite for Uranium ions. Paul called it an Oklo reaction.

It took a month or more, but the subterranean pools of radioactive water were enough to generate the power required for a jump—a precisely calculated jump—from one particular point to another. How they figured it all out and secreted the equipment in the desert was still a mystery, but the cavern in Wadi Rumm was a one way jump to the time of the Crusades—right smack into the midst of Castle Massiaf, the key base for Sinan’s Assassins in that region. Unwittingly, Paul had taken the ride in Rasil’s place, and it was only the incredible ingenuity of Kelly and Maeve that brought him home.

Robert remembered how he wrangled with his captor, Rasil, and that brief moment when he had managed a glimpse into the other man’s haversack. In addition to the satellite phone he had used to alert Kelly and Maeve to their dilemma, he had found an odd scroll, inscribed with strange writing that he immediately recognized. He was still ruminating over the hieroglyphics he had seen there, and an idea began to bubble up. The scroll was obviously a message of sorts. Maeve’s voice was back, her words echoing in his mind as he replayed the conversation from their last meeting.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“It’s what I didn’t find,” Nordhausen replied. “They’ve got every last line of discovered hieroglyphic text on file now, and I know enough about the script to replicate what I saw in that scroll. Using characters dating from the Old Kingdom, I was able to draw out most of what I remembered. I scanned the images and ran comparison queries in the database, but there were no hits on those phrases.”

“It could mean that this Rasil fellow had something from another milieu.” Maeve raced on in her thinking, and it had jogged something loose in Nordhausen’s mind.

“Then you suppose they might be using the hieroglyphics as a kind of code?” he remembered saying. “That would explain why the passages don’t exist in any discovered writings. But I had the distinct impression that the characters I saw were a rubbing—as if they had been pressed onto the scroll from an original stone carving. It was very odd.”

It certainly was, and Robert intended to follow up on his hunch and get to the bottom of this business, here and now. He went through his reasoning again, like a man shuffling through his pockets to be sure he had everything he needed for a trip. There were lots of discoveries from antiquity that failed to survive to his present day. Many artifacts had become lost, damaged or destroyed. Libraries had been looted in ancient times, as at Alexandria, and even in recent years, when the collection of the Baghdad Museum had been plundered at the outset of the war in Iraq. Unless they were utterly destroyed, these things still had to be in the world somewhere. Perhaps he could use the Arch to have a look around in a few promising places. In the process he hoped to find out more about Rasil’s mysterious scroll. If it was indeed a rubbing, as he suspected, it seemed to him that some of the history was written in stone. The more he thought about it the better it sounded in his head, though he did not want to bring his idea up in committee just yet. He had an inkling of where he might find a good cache of old stone carvings from Egypt that had been lost to his day. They were here, right here in London, in the British Museum.

The world had been blissfully ignorant of Egypt and its fabulous history until Napoleon followed his ambitions and invaded that ancient country in 1799. A thousand scholars had accompanied him there, bent on bringing the benefits of Western enlightenment to backward people, yet the inverse had been true. Instead, the troops of savants had uncovered the majesty of the pyramids, of Karnak and Luxor and Thebes. They had sketched it all out in notebooks and carted off hundreds of artifacts and stone carvings to Europe when Napoleon finally fled. Some of the very first finds of the old hieroglyphics had been uncovered during that three year expedition—and many of them were here, in the British Museum. They were all nested away in the showrooms and cellars, long before the greed and neglect of the world saw them scattered or lost. He had them all on hand for his inspection, and he was going to have a very close look before the weekend was through. This was going to be great fun, he thought. Great fun indeed!

He looked about, trying to get oriented. He hadn’t gone far in time. He imagined he should be pretty close to the target date, and pulled out a map of the City while walking to the nearest gas light. The trees were dripping, and his eyes were starting to burn. How on earth could people live like this, he wondered? It was worse than Los Angeles in the summers of his youth. More evidence of human progress, he thought, with a sense of pity. These people suffered from asthma, tuberculosis, chronic alcoholism, tobacco related illnesses… what did they not suffer from? There were hideous chemical toxins in the air, especially heavy metal compounds of lead, arsenic, mercury—not to mention parasites and pathogens. And this was the greatest city in the world at this moment in time. He would be lucky not to come back with cholera! He made a note to drink only brewed, distilled or fermented beverages. Beer, wine or gin were likely to be his tipples this weekend.

He peered at the map while standing below a street sign posted on the side of a wall at the intersection. Paddington Street. Tracing his finger, he found it. Yes, he was smack in the middle of London, close to Covent Garden and the British Museum, just off Baker Street… Baker Street!

The thrill of time travel was on him again. Around every corner would be a new historical landmark. He could not begin to take it all in. He wondered who might have been beheaded on this very spot, 900 years ago. If only it weren’t so murky. At that moment, bells began to peal in the far distance. What time was it? They were immediately picked up by a closer set and, one by one, half a dozen, seven, eight, peals overlaid one another. The gentle tolling hung in the air, almost vibrating the fog molecules, making the entire city hum.

“Oranges and lemons, sing the bells of St. Clemens,

“When will you pay me, sing the bells of Old Bailey,

“When I am rich, sing the bells of Fleetditch,

“When will that be, ring the bells of Stepney,

“When I am old, ring the Great Bells at Paul’s”

The nursery rhyme came to him, unbidden, from forty years in his past. And indeed, nearby St. Paul’s tolled long and deep, and hung in the air rolling longer than any of the others. He turned toward its sound, but could see nothing in the fog. He counted out four long tolls.

What time was it, indeed? What year was it? This was not the undifferentiated Olden Days, this was a specific moment of time. The Arch had sifted and juggled every quantum particle of the universe to produce this moment—just for him. Now he was in a Deep Nexus, and Time waited, holding her final judgment in abeyance as she watched his every move, like Maeve on his shoulder, her constant whisper in his ear. He would have to be very careful. He couldn’t do anything to inadvertently change things. He would just have a brief look around, steal over to the museum, and then get home. He had studied the maps and social history books (all at home, never at the labs!) But he needed to get oriented. This was quite different from the desert adventure. Here there was a real possibility that he would have to interact with the locals, have conversations, and pass in society. He and the Bedouin might have been space aliens to each other as far as their social intercourse. Here, he must pass; he must fit in and flow along the streets like the genteel soul he made himself to be in his carefully chosen clothing.

Oh, Maeve, perhaps you were right…

2

He decided to head out to Baker Street, which was a thoroughfare, and sounded as if it had more traffic on it. It was six o’clock, and very dark in these northern latitudes by this hour, but the night was still young.

He stood, for a while, at the corner, watching the passersby. This appeared to be a substantial middleclass neighborhood. The street was lined with shop fronts, supporting three brick stories of apartments above them. There were street lights on the corners and, in the middle of each block, a line of fading glows in either direction. The fog was lighter here. People strolled along the street, alone or in couples, mostly in silence, but he caught occasional lines of conversation.

“Evening, Miss Hynes.”

“Evening, Mr. Simms.” The gracious nod as one passed another in the street, and occasionally a casual, courteous remark or two. “You’re looking well tonight. Lovely rose in your cheeks, m’lady. Must be that fine fare you set on table. Such a roast! Enough to feed a brace of yard workers, I’ll warrant.”

“You’re too kind, Mr. Simms.”

Nordhausen smiled, wondering whether Mr. Simms was angling for the lady’s affections or a good meal. Still, the simple humanity of these people was immediately impressed upon him. They were not ‘historical figures,’ subjects for his intellectual digestion and study. They were real flesh and blood now, with quirks and foibles and all too familiar gestures as they spoke to one another in that brief passing. He rubbed his palms together, experiencing a moment of excitement. He was here at last, and this was going to be far more interesting that he could possibly imagine.

He was beside the shop window of Wm. Hycross, Shirtmaker, displaying his wares on fashionable stuffed torsos. Across Baker Street was Curtis and Co., Chemists. Each appeared to be open for business, although neither appeared to have any traffic at the moment. Nordhausen wondered what Mr. Hycross would think about his style. In his preparations, he had shopped eBay for period clothing, and accessorized at the San Francisco antique shops. Dressed as he was, he suddenly felt naked. He hoped he would not appear too au bas du style. What if Mr. Hycross should see a fashion idea that was not to appear for another 10 years! He was certain that his beautiful woolen overcoat with fur collar and lapels was no earlier than 1906. What year was it? He decided to go across the street to the Chemists.

The shop took up the corner of Baker and Crawford Street, and he smiled at the surprise when he realized that Paddington had been renamed here. The establishment had large windows on the intersection, displaying a variety of compounds in attractive jars, bottles, boxes, envelopes. The labels held drawings of happy children, attractive young people, hale and hearty elders, with names like Professor M’omber’s Vegetable Hair Grower, Hemsley’s Worm Destroying Spirit, Dr. J. Hedge’s Fever and Ague Annihilator, Heimbold’s Compound Fluid Extract Buchu (for diseases of the bladder and kidney, obstruction of the urine, chronic gonorrhea and gleets); Taylor’s Celebrated Electric Oil.

Nordhausen’s excitement and curiosity got the better of him. He simply had to go in and have a brief look, so he pushed the heavy door in. It set a bell on a wire to tinkling. He shut the door, and made his way through aisles of display cabinets to the counter in the back of the store. The sudden warmth on his face was comforting, and he caught the distinctive odor of good tobacco in the air. The only light came from a desk lamp, from which the no doubt Mr. Curtis sprang up sprightly to serve him.

“Well, sir, let me see, let me see, what can I prescribe for you today?”

“No, I am…”

“No sir, now don’t tell me. You have come to consult Henry Curtis, the principal prescribing chemist in this part of London, pray allow me to serve you. I see that you are not from these parts, sir?” He peered intently at Nordhausen.

“Yes, I…”

“No, no, sir, let me diagnose.”

Mr. Curtis pursed his lips and looked Nordhausen up and down. He cocked an eyebrow.

“I observe, sir, that although you exhibit signs of radiant good health, you suffer from an insidious internal weakness in your kidneys. Tell me, do you complain of,” he looked about as if a lurker might be eavesdropping, “sporadic urination?”

Nordhausen was taken aback. “Sporadic?”

“Yes, I was certain of it! As well, I observe your color is high. This is a sure sign of an unnatural effusion of blood in the peripheral system. I shall prescribe an anti-apoplectine and a specific for your kidney congestion, perhaps Grover’s Tasteless Elixir.”

He made a few notes on a small pad, then looked back up.

“Where might you be from, sir? Let me see. I observe your clothing was not made by a London tailor, so I take it that you have come recently from foreign shores. Am I not correct, sir?”

“Yes, only just now.”

“You are plainly an American gentleman, your accent is discernible.”

“Yes, I am newly arrived from San Francisco.”

“From San Francisco, indeed! That is a long journey, to be sure. Allow me to recommend Miss Plimsy’s Restorative. Although made for the ladies, between you and me, sir, it has powers for the masculine sex. And I believe it is an American product, containing an invigorating mixture of cocaine tempered with a dash of morphine. Believe me, your first evening in London will be a pleasure!”

“Thank you, no!” Nordhausen burst in. “No doubt you are dead on in your diagnosis, however, I… I… rely on my own physician for treatment of those very ills! Your acuity is remarkable.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” Mr. Curtis lowered his voice, “I may say certain crowned heads have graced this shop floor for relief, and gone away satisfied.” He resumed a normal speaking tone. “However, allow me to press on you this bottle of Miss Plimsy’s Restorative, a gift, as it were, of friendship across the waters.”

Nordhausen accepted the gift in the spirit with which it was offered, and shuddered to wonder what other ingredients the bottle might contain.

“So, sir, if you have not come to shop, how else can I serve you?”

“Well, Mr. Curtis, as you have discovered, I am here from America, and I find myself lost in your metropolis, unable to find my station, my hotel or my bags.”

“How did that happen, sir?” Mr. Curtis was concerned.

Nordhausen’s mind flew, beginning to weave tangled webs.

“I had loaded my trunks on a cab at South Kensington Station. When I turned away for a moment, the cab took off with all my baggage. I tried to chase it through the streets, got lost, and now I am here.”

“My dear sir, we must report this to the police, at once!”

“No!” Nordhausen shouted. “I mean, no. I don’t desire to call the police at this time.”

“But, sir, all your effects!”

“No,” Nordhausen said, firmly, “No, sir, I prefer not to. Please respect my wishes in this.”

Mr. Curtis was taken aback, but when presented to him like that, he had no choice. “Very well, sir, but what shall you do?”

“Perhaps you can direct me to a hotel in the neighborhood, where I can spend the night, and determine what to do in the morning?”

Mr. Curtis considered. “I think Halliday’s Private Hotel would serve you well, in Little George Street, which is quite nearby. You will be certain to find good accommodations there, and my cousin is the manager.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Curtis.”

“Not at all, sir, it is a duty and pleasure to assist tourists to our fair city. I strongly recommend you reconsider your decision not to inform the police. This is not only an extreme inconvenience to you, but a stain on London, and its corps of honest, hardworking cabbies. No doubt you were recognized as a foreigner by that robber, just as easily as I recognized it!

“Come, let me direct you, and, if I may say, please consider returning for my own patented rapid hair restorer and scalp calmative, made principally of lead paste with a soupcon of arsenic. Don’t take it orally, of course.”

Nordhausen believed he was supposed to laugh, so he did. Mr. Curtis smiled as his non-failing punch line worked again.

Mr. Curtis directed him down several blocks, and in short order, with the golden currency of Mr. Curtis’ referral, Nordhausen was installed in a third floor room, with bow windows overlooking Little George Street. The check-in was remarkable. No one asked him for money, much less a credit card. Only the most general information was needed for the register, and his word was unquestioned. In fifteen minutes he was lying on his back on the rather firm bed, catching his breath, and reviewing everything that had happened.

It hadn’t taken a clothier to view his ensemble with suspicion, and his clever explanation had almost landed him in the police station. Yet, his chance encounter with Mr. Curtis had gotten him lodging for the night he needed. He might even venture out for the evening.

In fact, he ought to venture out for the evening! He had only 48 hours, of which he had already spent one. Forty seven to go. He should go where no one would ask him questions. He should visit a low dive; some place where he could be quietly inconspicuous and just take in the wonderful atmosphere, no matter how sordid it might be.

A cabby should be able to direct him. He had plenty of money. He had brought fifty pounds in notes, and twenty pounds in coin, all from 1869 through 1882. What year was it? That alone would tell him what kind of holiday he could have.

And again he thought of the bottle of Miss Plimsy’s Restorative in his pocket. Only forty eight hours in Victorian London. A little cocaine? Stay up for two days? If not now, when? If not here, where? A little cocaine wasn’t going to hurt him. It restored the ladies, no?

He looked at the label, which told him nothing. It was an attractive silver paper, printed with robin’s egg blue ink. An illustration of a fine figured young lady holding a parasol, ample bosom, generous bustle, with a winsome smile. Miss Plimsy’s Restorative, for Ladies. A Rejuvenating Elixir and Calmative. (For Peculiarly Feminine Complaints.) He unscrewed the tin cap, and looked at the honey brown fluid. He dipped his finger in the cap, and touched it to his tongue. An intense ginger syrup masked the taste of the drugs. It certainly appeared to be cocaine: his tongue was quickly getting numb!

He took note of a bell pull against the wall by the bed, the pulling of which resulted in the prompt appearance of a tiny Irish chamber maid, who took his order for tea. “Thoroughly boiled? Certainly, sir!” On her return, he ordered hot water, also thoroughly boiled, for his ablutions.

He poured himself a cup of tea, brewed stiff and black. He spooned in a couple spoons of sugar, and added in a dose of Miss Plimsy’s from the bottle. He stirred the concoction, screwed his courage to the sticking point, and drank.

As he savored the potion he wondered about his clothing again. Perhaps he should do something a little more adventurous on this once in a lifetime excursion. Why waste his time in a dive when he might take in some high art at the opera? The thought of seeing an original play from this era was suddenly overwhelming. But he couldn’t very well mix in fine company dressed as he was. If the likes of Mr. Curtis had noticed him, then he would stick out like a proverbial sore thumb at the opera. What to do? Could he rent something?

When the maid returned to see that all was in order he asked about clothiers in the vicinity.

“Oh, yes, sir. You’ll want Madame Tussaud’s for rental of evening dress. There’s a shop over on King Street where you can hire for the night. The usual prices are five shillings for a decent gentleman’s coat, two for a nice vest, three for trousers, and another five if you’ll be needing an overcoat, which I would certainly recommend on a night like this. Of course, a deposit of the value of the articles has to be left during the hiring.”

“You are most kind,” said Nordhausen.

“Pray tell me, sir—will you be off to see H.M.S Pinafore at the Opera Comique? I hear it’s all the rage in town these days.”

“H.M.S Pinafore?” Nordhausen was absolutely delighted to hear that this original Gilbert and Sullivan hit was actually playing in town.

“Why, yes sir. And I hear that you might even find Mr. Gilbert or Mr. Sullivan about in the clubs thereafter.” She gave him a wink.

“Indeed,” said Nordhausen, and the light of discovery was burning fervently in his eyes, fueled by a healthy dose of old Miss Plimsy’s Restorative.

3

He swirled the claret in his goblet, enjoying the light play in its ruddy bowl, and watching the legs ooze down the walls of the glass. It smelled heady, very alcoholic, rich and fruity. As he raised it to take a sip, the front doors burst open, and a small crowd poured in, chattering away in the wake of two men who walked together arm in arm. He immediately took notice, thrilled that he had been correct in his choice of club. Adjacent to the Opera hall, this was a most likely spot for revelry after the show, which he had enjoyed immensely. Several cast members has slipped away soon after, and he followed one to this very spot, staking out a small table near the wall where he could enjoy a drink and let the thrill of his evening subside a bit.

The little group paused for a moment, then headed for a cluster of chairs and sofas with a low serving table that would seat them all.

The younger man, perhaps 25 years old, was strikingly tall, several inches over six feet, and with thick dark brown hair, parted in the middle, and pouring down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a heavy lavender overcoat, with darker purple Astrakhan fur collar and cuffs. Certainly more outré than anything Nordhausen had seen in London so far. He gesticulated languidly as he spoke, his large hands flapping like thick pale birds, punctuating his speech.

“Such a success,” he was saying, “I counted three acclamations, fully fifty three hilarities, two thrilling movements, four renewals of applause and two indefinite explosions. The audience was in the palm of your hand! Perhaps I shall write for the theater…”

The other gentleman was almost as tall, perhaps twenty years older, and seventy pounds heavier, with black hair slicked with macassar oil, and an exuberant mustache blossoming between his nose and lip. He was conventionally dressed for the evening, in black with a white cravat, and a sharp gold headed walking stick. He was listening attentively, with a twinkle in his eye, to the torrent of words flowing from the younger man, as the two made their way to a table in the middle of the club. He held the chair for one his companions, and said, “I have an enthusiastic chef du claque. We almost closed six times during the summer, when the heat was so bad. But more clement weather has revived the aestivating public.” Several hangers-on grabbed seats at their table, the slower ones settling for the surrounding sofas.

The younger man had shed his overcoat and underneath was dressed for evening as well, although he sported a green chrysanthemum on his jacket. Nordhausen’s recollection flashed, and he realized with a start that this must be the young Oscar Wilde! The flower was his signature accessory, and now everything about the man filled in the details in Nordhausen’s mind—his height, his eyes, the effusive energy. And something else… He squinted through the smoky room, thrilled to see that there was a faint sheen of amber about Wilde, just like the aura that he had seen surrounding Lawrence!

The telltale glow was a certain giveaway, and now he saw that it suffused the older man as well. He realized that this must be another important figure. But who? The maid’s tip had been right and he was sitting not twenty feet from Prime Movers! He sat straight and strained to hear the exchanges. At that moment the older man slapped his palm on the table, and stood up, looking around the club.

“Let us settle this democratically, Mr. Wilde,” he boomed. “Let us ask an ordinary man in the club to break our tie vote.”

His eye lit on Nordhausen, caught staring, and in an instant he called to him.

“Sir, you are the gentleman nearest our table, you shall settle this dispute between me and my young friend here!”

Nordhausen was taken aback, “Sir, I… don’t wish to intrude.” His heart began to pound. He was supposed to be invisible. Actually, he wasn’t supposed to be there at all, but he had just opened his mouth and addressed a Prime Mover! Oh God, what have I gotten myself into now, he thought, his neck burning with the heat of embarrassment and his own chiding regret.

“Nonsense, sir, we must have done with this, I insist you come over and join Mr. Wilde and me!” He signaled a waiter and ordered fresh brandies. Nordhausen did not know what to do! Further hesitation would only cast more suspicion on his presence there. He had to move; he had to pass for the very thing that this man believed him to be—just a simple gentleman out for an evening’s entertainment. His legs were rubber as he stood up, moving timorously to join the group.

“Welcome, kind sir! I am William Gilbert, and this is Mr. Oscar Wilde, only lately let loose on London from academic shackles in Oxford, and already making old hands like me take notice of him.”

Gilbert offered his hand, which Nordhausen took by instinct. His mind was a blur now. He had just made physical contact with a Prime, something that was absolutely forbidden under Maeve’s hard charter. What was he doing? If she ever found out about this he would be flayed alive. But the man took hold of his hand with a vigorous shake and radiated so much conviviality that Nordhausen was entirely taken in. Wilde stood up and gracefully put out his own hand, which fully engulfed Nordhausen’s. The warmth of the other man’s palm on his own was electric.

“I… I am Mr. Robert Nordhausen, of San Francisco. It is… a great pleasure to meet you gentlemen, especially Mr. Wilde, of whom I have heard so much.” Nordhausen stammered a bit, but he was running on pure reflex now, trying to be as civil as he could to cover his obvious discomfiture.

Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “Oscar, your fame spans the globe, and you just fresh out of school.”

“Novelty flies like winged thought,” Wilde drawled. “It needs no submarine cables to girdle the sphere. I am the modern Ariel, although more fleshly.”

“Well, Mr. Nordhausen, what brings you to London?” Gilbert asked. “Have you been here long?”

Nordhausen spun out his lie about the stolen luggage, to general expressions of sympathy all round. He told them that he was in London to study at the British Museum.

“What do you read, Mr. Nordhausen?” Wilde inquired. “I have spent countless hours over the last several years drenched in the dusty miasma of that hall.”

“I… am a student of ancient Egypt…” Nordhausen proposed.

“Oh? How ancient, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde inquired. “I, myself, spent a term studying the Ptolemaic literature.”

Nordhausen certainly didn’t want to start up a discussion of Hellenistic Greek with Oscar Wilde! He had to keep his contact to the bare minimum. He had to divert attention away from himself and melt away into the anonymity of the crowd. The very notion that he was standing here with two Prime Movers was setting his heart thumping, and he was already sweating profusely.

“Uh, no, dynastic Egypt, before the Greek invasion.”

“Then you are a student of art as well! Gilbert, you have by chance selected the right man for this dispute,” he turned to Nordhausen, “for it is about Art… as what is not?”

Gilbert sat back and began to trim a cigar, while Wilde pondered for a moment how best to put his case.

“Gilbert was educated to the law,” he began, “So he disdains to call what he produces Art. As a practical writer, he sees all Art as he sees his own Art, a circumstantial product, created for the occasion.” He turned to face Gilbert, who by now was huffing on his cigar to light it. “That is the solipsistic fallacy, as you well know.” He rounded on Nordhausen. The surrounding group was focused hypnotically on the large young man with the bright, quick gray eyes. His face was alive as he spoke, his expression flashing to a different mood on almost every word.

“I, on the other hand, maintain that, like it or not, Mr. Gilbert is touched by the Muse. Several Muses no doubt, let me see, Erato, certainly Thalia, and no doubt you flirt with Terpsichore. Art is an attempt by us earthly men to limn the heaven that we know lies beyond. When we envision heaven, we create art.”

“A pretty sort of heaven it is, if one goes by my doggerel,” Gilbert scoffed, puffing great clouds of foul smelling smoke. “I churn out reams of nonsense, which Sullivan somehow ennobles and turns into opera. There is the suffering artist, if you will. This present jolly success of Pinafore was written by Sullivan line by line while he was suffering the most excruciating pain from his illness. There is a man lashed by the Muse… and for what? To set music to popular nonsense verse.” He paused. Nordhausen settled on a chair, his legs still weak, but he was on the edge of his seat.

“Poor Sullivan! Dean Dodgson has been pestering him to write some songs for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Dean has no ear for music, but he has been told that Sullivan was the man to go to for nonsense. Sullivan cannot bring himself to respond with more than a broad hint that it shall never be, but the Dean has no ear for subtlety either, I fear.”

“Perhaps I shall set myself to comedy, now that I am free from the Classics,” Wilde mused. “We Irish boast a native humor which you English can only appreciate.”

“Perhaps I shall set myself to Aestheticism,” Gilbert returned. “I can make aesthetic doggerel as easily as patriotic sentiment or amatory…” he faded into thought, and suddenly brightened.

“Here, we shall have a contest. Mr. Nordhausen from America will judge it.”

He went on brightly, “Oscar, we shall each compose at this moment, a verse. You may pray to your Muse for inspiration, and create Art! I shall do what I do best, and crank out a quatrain impromptu. But!” he held up a finger. “You shall write a comic verse, and I shall write an aesthetic. And Mr. Nordhausen shall decide if either one of us is struck with fairy dust, or if we have simply churned out an occasional piece, on command. What do you say, Mr. Nordhausen?”

Both men looked to Nordhausen. What could he say, what should he do? “I… wouldn’t dream of judging either one of you gentlemen,” he began, trying to find a way out of his dilemma.

“Not a word of it, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde interjected. “You are our Everyman. After all, if my Art does not bring you to want to go to Heaven, I am a failed craftsman.” He looked at Gilbert. “The stakes?”

“The next round.”

“The terms?”

“Five minutes by Mr. Nordhausen’s watch. The first to recite, by coin toss.”

“Agreed.” Gilbert pulled out a large silver coin. “Your call, Mr. Wilde.”

“Heads, Mr. Gilbert, I am ever the optimist, and hope to see our beloved monarch’s face on every toss!”

Gilbert tossed, and caught the coin. “Heads it is, Mr. Wilde. Shall we retire to our corners for the bout? Mr. Nordhausen, this snifter shall be the bell.” He gave it a tap with his nail and it rang. “Five minutes, Mr. Wilde.”

“Have at you, Mr. Gilbert.”

“Geshundheit, Mr. Wilde.”

Nordhausen fumbled about in a near panic. He remembered the pocket watch he had purchased from a curio shop in preparation for this trip and managed to pull it from his coat pocket, relieved that he had the good sense to put it there when he changed into this rented evening wear. Still, he struggled to contain a slight tremor in his hand as he flipped it open and stared at the clock face. The magnitude of what he was doing continued to press itself upon him, cruelly now, as the time piece seemed to taunt him with every tick of the second hand.

God, Oh God… were the seconds all in order? Surely he was not here this evening on the night Wilde and Gilbert decided to have this little contest. He was not the one to judge it. With every tick he could almost hear the corresponding echo of a great hammer beating on the Meridian of Time. Every word he spoke, every movement and gesture he made, was altering the timeline now. His plan had already come unglued, and all history, from this moment forward, would bear the stain of his willful and headstrong folly. He was absolutely mortified, and he knew he deserved the hardest lash that fate could deliver upon him, though he hoped, with all his might, that these seemingly harmless moments would not wreak havoc in some future time.

But what was he to do? Should he turn and rush away into the night and end the contamination here and now? A scene like that would make quite a stir. Should he play out the game, extricate himself as pleasantly as possible and then slip away? That course made more sense to him. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and he swallowed hard as the two men began to write.

Wilde sat at their table, while Gilbert retired to the bar. Wilde snatched a napkin, and drew a slim golden pencil from his pocket and began to scribble. A small coterie had followed Gilbert, and Nordhausen could hear muffled laughter from across the room. Wilde’s junto was standing around him in silence, watching the Master work. He scratched out lines in green pencil, sat back pensively, ran his fingers through his long hair, wrote some more, crossed out the end of a line, closed his eyes and steepled his fingers, wrote some more. He was a man in the grip of a creative urge. To Nordhausen, he did not look like a man who was writing comic verse. On the other hand, the hilarity from Gilbert’s group was various, from chuckles, to snickers to howls.

Gilbert was done. Nordhausen said, “30 seconds, Mr. Wilde.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nordhausen, I shall be done presently.”

At five minutes, Nordhausen tapped the brandy snifter, and called, “Time, gentlemen.” The irony of his statement remained his own private torment for the moment.

Gilbert came back over and settled himself in his chair. “Well, Oscar, what has the Muse of Comic Verse dispatched into your noodle?”

Wilde stood to declaim, his right arm behind his back, his left holding the napkin. He smiled puckishly, and began:

I love to hear the spoken word,

As long as it’s my own,

It matters little how absurd

My thesis may be shown.

I sometimes carry on for hours

When no one’s there but me,

It works to hone my native powers

Of smart loquacity.

But often, when I listen to

Myself, I am so clever,

That what I say remains incom-

-Prehensible forever.

With a flourish, he dropped the napkin on the table, paused briefly, bowed, and delighted applause broke from the listeners. Gilbert nodded and clapped, and rose to his feet.

“Very clever, indeed, Mr. Wilde. Self-deprecation is the surest source of humor. Your lines and words are short, the rhythm is rollicking, and you have a satisfactory ending… all in all a workmanlike production. Writing for the musical theatre, you may want to use a longer line, for the sake of your melodist. Do you maintain this is the inspiration of the Muse or a vision of heaven?”

“A vision of heaven to the extent it describes me, I am sure!” Wilde drawled. “I make no extravagant claims for this trifle. Indeed, this club is hardly the Sanctum of Beauty; I am working at a considerable disadvantage here. But let us see what you have written – an aesthetic quatrain perhaps?”

Gilbert grasped his hands together, and pressed them to his bosom. He looked up wistfully into the vague middle distance, heaved a deep breath and sighed.

“Ah, to be wafted away

“From this black Aceldama of sorrow,

“Where the dust of an earthly today

“Is the earth of a dusty tomorrow!”

He dropped his hands, lowered his eyes for a moment, then bobbed his head up with a huge grin. His cronies burst into applause, and howled at Wilde’s clique, who were not quite certain how to take it.

“Is that feeling? Is that sensitive, Mr. Wilde? As Captain Corcoran says: Though I’m anything but clever, I can talk like that forever!”

Wilde’s grin equaled Gilbert’s. “Mr. Nordhausen, Gilbert’s verse is surely inspired. I wish I had said that!”

Gilbert rejoined, “You will, Oscar, you will!”

Both men turned again to Nordhausen.

“So, Mr. Nordhausen, who is the victor? Who wins the golden apple of the Hesperides?”

Nordhausen despaired.

“You gentlemen have given me quite a challenge. Give me five minutes on the glass, and I will award the prize.”

“Fair enough!”

Nordhausen retired from the group. What on earth was he to say? How could he make a critical evaluation of Oscar Wilde, just out of college, with his entire output ahead of him. Could he say anything which might help the poor man in the horrible future he was going to find? What if he said the wrong thing, and put off Wilde from comedy entirely? That would change everything!

He didn’t imagine Gilbert was as sensitive as Wilde, but how could he judge a man who had taken the world by storm and would churn out brilliant hit after brilliant hit for the next couple decades?

He dug into his pocket and took a pull of Miss Plimsy’s. Thank you, Mr. Curtis. A bit of chemical eloquence. Brrrrr…. nasty stuff straight out of the bottle. And the pesky numbness in the mouth. He’d have to articulate carefully.

He heard the ding, and Gilbert called to him. He nervously walked over to the table, where the entire group, as one, stared at him.

Gilbert handed him a fresh brandy, which he slogged to rinse out Miss Plimsy’s potion. Wilde, the wild Irishman, drank whiskey.

It was show time.

“Mr. Gilbert,” he bowed, “Mr. Wilde,” he turned and bowed.

“This is a hard task you have given me. If I understand it, Mr. Wilde maintains that Art is inspired by a Muse, that it comes through us from something above and beyond, and that the artist drifts with every passion till his soul is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.”

“Well enough put for my side.”

“Mr. Gilbert says all art is occasional, and to prove his point, whipped out his little aesthetic ditty. He says he can do that all day long, and I do believe it.”

“Perhaps we should have an epic competition, eh, Wilde? You can do the Renaissance and I can do the Restoration!”

Nordhausen hurried on, still fretting over every word he spoke. “It is clear that Mr. Wilde produced, on command, a comic verse, which excited laughter in your group, and general approbation. So it would appear that Mr. Gilbert is the winner.”

“Hah, the practical American! I did choose rightly! Let’s have three cheers for me! What ho?”

“On the other hand….” Nordhausen interrupted gingerly.

Gilbert stopped in mid-huzzah. “There is more? Is there a prize for runner-up?”

“On the other hand, no mere mortal can do what Mr. Gilbert does. I could not, no one else in this room can do what you do, sir.”

Gilbert bowed, puzzled. “You honor me, sir, but what you say is no doubt true, although I am forced to acknowledge it.”

“So, if no mere mortal can do what you do, it is clear that your work is inspired, and we may as well attribute the inspiration to a Muse, as to any other source. So, I must say that Mr. Wilde is correct, and is also the winner.”

The group sat hushed for a beat, as they tried to work out the logic of Nordhausen’s exposition. At the exact same moment, Wilde and Gilbert burst into laughter, and stood applauding in acclamation. The rest of the group joined them, and Nordhausen found himself the focus of their adulation. He smiled, pleased that he had come up with something to reward the effort of each man. Perhaps I’ve set it right, he thought hopefully as he fingered his pocket watch. Internally he shrugged his shoulders, dislodging the spectral Maeve from the perch she had occupied for the better part of the evening. The hearty cheers and the glass of champagne he accepted served to ease his troubled conscience.

“But my word!” Nordhausen took a sip of champagne and set the glass down. “I’ve just had a look at the time and I really must be off.”

The gleeful gathering protested, but Nordhausen was determined to extricate himself before he was forced to speak another word. The verse that Gilbert had spun out still haunted him, for it carried the seed of his greatest fear. The dust of this earthly today was indeed the earth of a dusty tomorrow.

I’ve tipped brandy with two Prime Movers, he thought. God only knows what I’ve accomplished. He hurried away from the club, drawing his overcoat close about him against the evening chill. He wondered who actually won the competition in the time line he had come from. He had a 50-50 chance of choosing the same verdict if he could have just mustered the guts to hazard a guess. His solution, awarding victory to both of the contestants, had been clever, but was it wise?

And again, he realized that the man, or woman, who had actually served as judge in the original Meridian, had been unduly robbed of that moment by his interference. While it seemed an insignificant thing, that was exactly the sort of contamination that Paul always warned him about. It was not the great things, but the inconsequential ones that set the wheels of time to turning.

Off in the distance he heard the dull toll of a church bell timing out the half hour, and it gave him little comfort. Some time later, he made it back to his hotel. He had another 24 hours, in this Meridian, before his retraction scheme pulled him out. He needed sleep to gather his wits for the real intent of his journey, but the thought that he had already set the world to havoc with a toast of brandy kept him restless and tossing all through the night.

Part II

Contamination

“What Can we know, or what can we discern,

when error chokes the windows of the mind?”

—Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

4

He stood gazing up at the colossal red granite Horus looming six cubits over him. Nordhausen had seen this before in photographs. The god was 5000 years old already and would live forever. The building housing him was barely one hundred years old, and would one day be dismantled or fall into ruins, but Horus would remain. These islanders were wrangling rudely shaped megaliths into circles when Horus was sculpted 2181 miles away, the distance of the hypotenuse of the 1500 mile square, Sacred Jerusalem with Gizeh at one corner and London at the other. He was as perfect, smooth, curved, beaked and taloned, as he had been in Karnak. He had last been worshipped in the desert 1500 years ago, by an Ethiopian who had made a pilgrimage.

In ancient times, the Egyptians had seeded the earth with gods, and slowly, slowly, they were dispersing throughout the world. Perhaps someday, when the right obelisk was installed in the right cosmic vortex, who knew what long planned harmonic convergence might ensue?

The professor smiled to himself, pleased that he was finally busied with the real work of his time jaunt. The revelry of the previous night was still shrouding over him like a hangover, but what was done, was done. He was here and there was nothing else to do but make the most of things with the time that remained to him. He had dropped off his formal wear this morning at Madame Tussaud’s on King Street, redeemed his deposit, had a spot of breakfast at a street café, and now he was here—at the British Museum.

Nordhausen’s musings were interrupted by the arrival of a governess and a small girl, very well dressed in deep blue velvet and black satin, eleven or twelve years old. The governess was paging through a guidebook, while the little girl solemnly looked up at the huge raptor, perching still and tense.

“This is a pagan god of the Egyptians, dear. It was captured from Boney, and brought to our island.”

“I wonder what it means,” the girl said, and ran her hands over a column of deeply incised hieroglyphics.”

“No one knows, dear, it is all a great mystery. It says here that the last people to use hieroglyphics died almost eighteen hundred years ago.”

Nordhausen was somewhat surprised by the woman’s remark. He knew he should keep his mouth tightly closed, but what harm could come from a little pleasant conversation? “Why, not at all,” he said. “This is the god Horus in the form of a falcon. See, here is the name of the pharaoh Rameses, who built this statue.” He pointed to the royal cartouche, and spelled out, “Ra-me-ses. This circle with the dot is Ra, the sun god. This funny knot is the symbol ‘mose’, which means ‘to give birth,’ so it stands for ‘M’, and these two hooks are S’s.”

The girl put her fingers on the hieroglyphics, and slowly traced, “Ra-me-ses.”

“Oh, sir,” interrupted the governess, “How is it possible that you would know all this? It’s an evil looking thing, that much I’ll give you. Has an unholy look about it, yes?”

“Unholy? I dare say, Madame. There is nothing holy about it. In fact, the Egyptians were quite fond of human sacrifice at one point, and I suppose this monument here has seen its fair share of blood through the ages.”

“My word! To speak of such things before an innocent child! Don’t touch, Marie! Come along now.” She grabbed the girl firmly by the arm, and hurried her out of the gallery, leaving little more than a frown in her wake.

Well I’ve done it again, thought Nordhausen as he mentally kicked himself. Suppose they were going to take the whole tour of the museum and I’ve gone and spoiled it all for them. Suppose the little girl was to find some glowing inspiration here that sticks in her mind and feeds the fires of her imagination—and now I’ve gone and put them out. Damn it man, when will you learn to keep your bloody mouth shut?

Angry at himself again, Nordhausen decided to go in the other direction. He resolved not to get involved with anyone else, if at all possible. He would just mind his own business and be done with this trip. As he sauntered towards the far end of the hall, he glanced at the cards on some of the displayed items. They were very curious, even for this curious world he found himself in. Not a single one identified the item, beyond a general description: Sandstone Goddess; Memorial stele; Porphyry pharaoh, from Luxor.

Nordhausen began to get a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. He began to look at every single item around him. Nothing was dated, nothing was identified. He could read a number of royal cartouches on various objects, and recognized Rameses, Thuthmose and one or two vaguely familiar others, on various statues, but none of them was named on the placards.

Something was very wrong. It was nearly a hundred years after the discovery of these objects by Napoleon during his expedition to Egypt in 1799. By now several scholars should have worked out the details of the hieroglyphics: Ackerbad and Silvestre de Sacy in 1802, and the initial work of Thomas Young on the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone itself. It was Young who proved that the proper names in the hieroglyphics section of the stone did, in fact, have phonetic values, and were not merely symbols, as had been hypothesized earlier. He then introduced the idea of the proper names being inscribed with ovals around them, known as cartouches.

Nordhausen didn’t expect the testy governess to know such things, but surely the Curator of the museum should know all this by now. Young’s main contribution to Egyptology was published in the 1824 Encyclopedia Britannica. The work of the French scholar Champollion would follow up on this thesis and do much in the way of explicating the hieroglyphics. But nothing was named here.

He stood in the middle of the empty hall, surrounded by huge, mute stone gods and kings, dully lit in the gray afternoon light that streamed in from the high windows. He heard the rushing of his blood, the loudest sound in this vacant room.

Recrimination vexed him, and the awful thought that he was somehow responsible for the unexpected change preyed upon him. But what could he have done to accomplish this? Surely not his innocent spat with the governess just now. He hadn’t done anything… partied with a bunch of swells last night, but that couldn’t have done this. What was going on?

Suddenly he became aware of a great absence. The most famous, the most important Egyptian relic in the world, was nowhere to be seen. He took a deep breath, made a quick circuit of the room, and then did it again making certain he missed nothing. He then made his way, in short, reluctant steps, toward a docent who sat reading in a chair. The docent, in a navy blue uniform with shiny brass buttons, looked up at the distraught Nordhausen, and immediately adopted a concerned expression.

“Sir, how can I help you?”

“Where,” his voice broke. “Where is the Rosetta Stone?” he finally rasped out.

“The Rosetta Stone, sir? I don’t believe I know that item. Can you be more specific?” He looked puzzled.

“The Rosetta Stone,” Nordhausen croaked, “Black basalt panel about so by so,” he gestured, “Same message in hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek…”

The man gave him an odd look, noticing his dress and immediately sizing him up as a foreigner. “No, sir, doesn’t ring a bell for me. Perhaps you were misinformed. We’ve nothing meeting that description here.”

Nordhausen could feel the blood draining from his face. “Kindly direct me to the Egyptian Curator,” he said.

“Certainly, sir, though I’m certain you’ll get much the same answer from him. Just go through this corridor, up the stairs, and it’s the fourth office on the left. Says ‘Curator of Egyptian Antiquities’ right on the door.”

Numbly, Nordhausen followed the directions, and was soon rapping on a heavy oak door, in an oak paneled hallway.

It was opened by a middle aged gentleman, with white hair and luxuriant, flowing mutton chop whiskers. His upper lip and chin were shaven, but huge sideburns erupted from his cheeks.

“Yes, sir, can I help you?”

“I am looking for the Egyptian Curator?”

“You have found him. I am Wilbert Wilberforce, himself, at your service. How can I assist you?”

“I was hoping to find the Rosetta Stone on display here, can you tell me where it is, sir?” Nordhausen almost pleaded.

“The Rosetta Stone? Which Rosetta Stone? There is a whole collection of artifacts that came in from Rosetta—”

Nordhausen cut in. “Black basalt slab, about so big, in hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek.”

The Curator’s eyes narrowed with a hint of recognition. “Oh, let me see, I may know what you mean,” Mr. Wilberforce mulled. “It is not on display, sir, it is in storage, downstairs. May I ask your name, sir, and your interest?”

“Not on display?” Nordhausen was immediately relieved. The great void in his mind was at least filled with the certainty that the stone was here, but why would they have it in the warehouse?

“Forgive me,” he said quickly. “My name is Robert Nordhausen, I have heard of this stone, and have come all the way from San Francisco, in the United States, to make a study of it.”

“Well, sir, you are in luck. I am unoccupied today and I would be happy to accommodate you. Let us go see if we can find this stone of yours. Follow me.”

Nordhausen was delighted. “You are too kind, sir. I was afraid, for a moment, that something was amiss.”

“Excuse me, sir?” The Curator gave him a sidelong glance.

“Well it’s just that none of the displays have any clear identifying labels. I suppose you’ve just not come round to detailing the history yet, is that it?”

“Detailing the history?” The Curator scratched his head. “Well, we’ve got what we can out on the main floor, but there’s simply not enough room for everything else. You’ll see.”

Wilberforce led Nordhausen down to the end of the corridor, and through a service door which opened into a plain dark stairwell, lighted by a skylight high above. The upper floors of museum were illuminated only by natural light.

Wilberforce went on, as they descended the stairs into the gloom. “I have not looked at this one for years,” he shrugged. “It is certainly a curiosity. Perhaps I should consider displaying it. Although, I don’t believe it is as large as you indicated. Ah, here we are.” He opened the door into a dark room, fumbled about until he found a match, and lighted a gas lamp on the wall.

Rows of rough shelving were revealed, running the length of the basement room. They were stacked with Egyptian artifacts, of all shapes and kinds, from statues, to domestic articles, to funerary gear, to odd lumps of stone with remains of paint or carving.

They walked deep into the room, Wilberforce stopping once to light another lamp. They reached the end of the storage room, where a number of stone tablets leaned against the wall.

“Oh, my,” said Mr. Wilberforce. “I should have brought a couple students to assist us.”

“That’s fine,” Nordhausen said, and walked up to the pile. “If it’s here, I will recognize it.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Wilberforce. “May I ask how you know about this stone, sir? I am sure nothing much at all has been published.”

Nordhausen gave the Curator a dark look, his misgivings churning up again. “Nothing published you say? Why, what about the work of Champollion, and that of your own Dr. Young before him?” He manhandled the first tablet out of the way, walking it on its corners with the help of the Curator. They did the same with the next, which was quite heavy, and stopped to catch their breath. The dim gas light cast long shadows.

“I—I—read about it in a French encyclopedia entry,” Nordhausen continued.

“French?”

“Why certainly. Champollion wrote about it all in a letter to a Mr. Dacier, revealing what his many years of research had come to. Why, he worked it all out from this very stone and published a book in 1824 detailing his work on the alphabet.”

“Forgive me, sir, but I’ve heard nothing about it.”

Nordhausen shrugged his shoulders and set to moving the next stone. Little grains of fine sandstone grated off the panel as he rocked it away and against the first two. Mr. Wilberforce didn’t seem to care, which was another thing that rankled in the back of Nordhausen’s mind. These slabs would get prime display in any museum in the world. The Rosetta stone was perhaps the most famous artifact ever recovered in Egypt—yet it was, stored away in the dingy cellar of the museum like so much trash. His eyes widened when he caught sight of the next slab.

There it was, hidden behind the stone he had just moved, dwarfed by the slab behind it. The thick black stone from Rosetta, but as the Curator had intimated, it was considerably smaller than it was supposed to be!

He stared at it, unwilling to believe what he was seeing for a moment. Then strained to push it closer to the light, almost afraid to set his hands upon it. This was it. There was no mistaking the characteristic basalt, with the demotic and Greek text laid out in neat lines etched into the stone. He swallowed hard. Where was the top third? Where were the hieroglyphics?

The stone was broken entirely across the top. There were only a few lines of hieroglyphics remaining, the last few lines of the text, and those were the very words that were missing from a chipped area at the bottom of the slab.

Nordhausen stood frozen. What had he done? It was not possible that he had done this, was it? What did this mean?

“Good lord,” he breathed. “It’s broken!”

“Just as it always was,” said Wilberforce.

“Always was? Are you saying there was nothing more of the hieroglyphics than this single line at the top?” Nordhausen looked aghast at the man, who now began to purse his lips with a hint of indignation.

“We take very good care of everything we receive, sir,” the Curator said a bit defensively. “I can assure you that these stones are in the very same condition they were received in—if not better.” He folded his arms, a bit perturbed by this strangely dressed visitor.

“Of course,” said Nordhausen, remembering to watch what he said just now. Still, his mind was racing feverishly ahead. If something as significant at this was altered, what else was different? Oh lord, what would he find when he got back?

Nordhausen took a deep breath.

Mr. Wilberforce was politely waiting for him to say something.

“Thank you, sir,” he said with a deflated tone. “It is not how I imagined it to be. It is useless for my studies. Please excuse me, I am very tired.”

Without waiting for reply, or even escort, Nordhausen wheeled about, and walked rapidly out of the cellar, out of the museum, and dully made his way back to his hotel.

What else was different?

The thought gouged him with every step he took. He raked through each moment of his time jaunt, wondering where the fatal blow had been struck. Was it the flagrant contact with Prime Movers he had the night before? He kept replaying the scene in his mind, trying to root out what he could have done to cause this catastrophe—for a catastrophe it was. The Rosetta Stone—a touchstone that had been the key to unraveling the mysteries of Ancient Egypt, was now nothing more than a useless slab of black basalt. How, how, how could this be?

Paul’s voice returned to him, “somewhere, lost on a single wayward thread of time, a moment exists that is mated to every great event on the continuum, a whisper of inconsequential absurdity that is forever paired to the great moments of history…” He called them Pushpoints, thought Nordhausen, and I’ve gone and pushed one—that much is certain.

The thought of Paul seemed to give him a moment of solace. He had to get back! He had to get to Paul and tell him about this. If there was anyone else in the world that could help him figure this out, it would be Paul. After all, he was the one who dreamt all this time business up in the first place.

He hurried along, as if the quickening of his footsteps would somehow hasten his return to his own time again. But he suddenly realized he was still stuck here. The retraction sequence would not kick in for hours—at least in this time. Barely twenty minutes had passed back in the Berkeley labs. He had timed his jump to finish before Paul came on duty tonight to relieve him of his shift, but at least he would be the only other team member at the facility when Nordhausen completed his return… If there still was a facility, a Paul Dorland, a world he could yet make any sense of.

Maeve’s warnings were a cruel crown of thorns for him now. He resolved to lock himself away in his hotel room, where he waited miserably for the Arch to pluck him back to whatever horror might await him in San Francisco, in the twenty first century.

5

The retraction sequence kicked in like clockwork and snatched the professor away in a haze of icy fog. This time he made a point of keeping his eyes tightly closed, so he could think things through with a clear head when he returned. He was already wondering how he would explain all this to the other project team members. Kelly’s Golems were sure to key in on the altered Meridian. He had little doubt that cell phones were ringing and people were hurtling toward the lab facility to check on the alert. In a way, that might help him, he thought. The Arch was set to activate itself in the event of an alert. If anyone showed up and found the turbines running the alert would provide a nice cover story. He could say he was the first on the scene and…

No… That just would not do. He knew that Kelly would certainly be able to home in on the exact moment the equipment was activated. He’d retrieve the exact coordinates, just like he uncovered the trip to Reading Station when Nordhausen went after Lawrence’s lost manuscript. Besides, these were his friends, and he had given his word and… What should he do?

To his great surprise, there was no one waiting for him at the Arch when he returned. Excellent! The access corridor was empty when the great locks separated. He rushed up the ramp to the elevator, and was bouncing on his toes impatiently while it glided up 50 meters of rock. The tunnel leading out of the hill to the lab was vacant. When he reached the heavy automatic doors leading into the lab, he pressed his face to the small glass window and peeked through. No one was there.

He punched the button on the wall that opened the doors, and they parted. The lab was empty, though the consoles were lit up and a bright red emergency light was flashing on the alert panel. He quickly glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. He had been gone about 30 minutes… unless it was 12 hours and 30 minutes… or 25 years and 30 minutes… no, there was no use getting lost in that! He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Be here now. Be here now.

First things first. He had to get out of these silly clothes and see what he could find out from the RAM bank report. He hurried to his office, and doffed his Victorian outfit, his mind churning. Even as he reflexively stuffed the clothing away in a laundry sack, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was already working his cover-up. Then the urgency of his discovery seized him again. What was going on? Was the world the same one he had left, or was it radically changed now? Kelly’s RAM bank should be noting the differences and spitting out references by now. He hurried back to the lab, almost afraid to see reams of computer paper littering the floor from an overworked printer.

To his great relief however, there was no data waiting for him in the report tray when he settled into a chair by the desk. He tapped his finger on the desk, wondering what to do. Then it occurred to him that he should initiate a search, starting with the very date he had targeted and running in keywords that he was certain of… The Rosetta Stone!

In the London he had just left, the Rosetta Stone was no more than an anonymous slab of basalt, but he had seen the stone several times in his Meridian of Origin, in London, in the British Museum. Was it still there?

He swiveled over to his computer, called up the search engine, and nervously typed in: ROSETTA STONE. He paused an instant and hit Enter. There were approximately 137,000 hits. He exhaled, noticing that he was holding his breath, and began to review the data.

Nathaniel MULLIKEN / Rosetta STONE

Nathaniel MULLIKEN / Rosetta STONE. Husband: Nathaniel MULLIKEN. Born: at: Married: at: Died: at: Father: John MULLIKEN. Mother: Mary POOR. Spouses: Rosetta STONE.

Rosetta Stone – Melvin Stone… 69121 individuals, 24883 families from file 20020823.ged (23 AUG 2002) Rosetta Stone (ABT 1799 – ____) Rosetta Stone (13 JUN 1811 – ____) Manasseh Stone (CHR 23…

Bun Busters Series 07 – Starring Rosetta Stone, Rodney Moore, Tammi… Bun Busters Series 07. Company: VCR PRODUCTIONS. Length: 82 mins.

This was not good. All he was getting was genealogical data and junk references. He needed to refine his search a bit, and decided to focus on one of the scholars who had done the key work in deciphering the stone. He typed in: FRANCOIS CHAMPOLLION and immediately received about 1500 hits. The man existed!

He opened the first page, an encyclopedia article:

Champollion was a French Egyptologist, who is acknowledged as the father of modern Egyptology. He achieved many things during his short career that laid the foundations for Egyptian archaeology.

He was born in 1790….

Yes, yes, thought Nordhausen. Get to the point. The man deciphered the hieroglyphics!

…While he was at the Lyceum, he presented a paper in which he argued that the language of the Copts in contemporary Egypt was, in essence, the same as that used by the Egyptians of antiquity.

His education continued at the College de France, where he specialized in languages of the Orient. He knew bits and pieces of many languages, and was fluent in several others. A partial listing of the languages he was familiar with is astounding: Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldean, Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic, Sanskrit, Pahlevi, and Persian.

But nothing whatsoever about the hieroglyphics! Nordhausen swallowed hard. Of course… It made perfect sense now. He had seen it with his own eyes. The stone was broken, and the entire body of knowledge surrounding the ancient Egyptian writing was broken with it. He scanned the rest of the article, hoping to find some hint or clue that would lead him to believe that things were all right, but there was nothing; nothing about his greatest achievement: the reading of the stone.

Then it occurred to him that this was not the only source of information about the Egyptian writing. He scoured his memory, trying to recall other instances of artifacts that had been inscribed with multiple languages. “Bubastis!” he said aloud, remembering a relatively new find there just a few years back. He immediately keyed in a new search and came up with an article in short order dated April 19th, 2004.

‘Potsdam – A team of German and Egyptian archaeologists working in the Nile Delta has unearthed “quite a remarkable” stele dating back 2,200 years to Ptolemaic Egypt which bears an identical inscription in three written languages. The grey granite stone, 99cm high and 84cm wide, was found “purely by accident” at the German excavation site of the ruined city of Bubastis, a once important religious and political center 90km north-east of modern-day Cairo.’(1)

Yes, he remembered taking more than a passing interest in this find, as it was just like the Rosetta Stone, a possible key to translating the hieroglyphics. His hopes sank as he read on:

‘The inscription consists of 67 lines of Greek text and 24 lines of Demotic along with traces of Hieroglyphs that were so degraded they could barely be read.

“It’s unfortunate,” said chief Egyptologist Dr, Christian Tieze. “If the Heiroglyphs had been better represented on this stone, we may have had an opportunity to decipher them.”

Archeologists remain baffled to this day by the ancient Egyptian writing, which has confounded cryptologists and historians alike.’

Nordhausen began to panic. Something had happened, and he had no idea of the consequences at this point. He began to search, desperately: HEIROGLYPHICS… TRANSLATION… INTERPRETATION… DYNASTIC EGYPT… BOOK OF THE DEAD… he typed in the names of Pharaohs, archeological sites, museums with noted collections… But it was all a fruitless effort.

Nowhere was there any indication that there was any translation of Hieroglyphics. Except… In his head! He thought hard for a moment, conjuring up the image of the cartouche he had seen on the statue of Horus. He could clearly see the carved figures in his mind, and he remembered how the little girl had traced her finger on the stone… “Ra-me-ses.” He knew how to read them! They all made perfect sense in his head. He had taken a class in graduate school thirty years before, and had been able to transliterate without reference help of any kind. While a student, he had actually kept a journal using hieroglyphics instead of Roman letters! It had been a fun project, and helped him to learn, but that was thirty years ago.

He heard the door behind him open, and he hurried to close the screen he was watching, his guilt reflex overcoming his better judgment. He spun around to see Paul Dorland regarding him with a curious look on his face.

“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you! Did you get the alert call?” Paul gave him a frustrated look.

“What? Why yes, of course. It was my shift. I was just down looking over the Arch to see if it was all in order… got here as soon as I could… been right here… working,” Nordhausen lied, feeling terrible about it at once.

“Well, I was just here ten minutes ago,” said Paul. “The consoles were humming at full tilt and Kelly’s Golems were running wild. But you were nowhere to be found.”

“I went down to check on the Arch, I tell you… and to the bathroom, if you don’t mind. If you had waited for me here, you would have seen that I came right back.”

“Mmmmhmmmm,” Dorland replied. He made no effort to hide his skepticism. “Anyway, here’s what I’ve managed to find out. The alert call went out at three past four, and we’ve got a preliminary spatial locus somewhere in the Middle East. Nothing hard yet. The Golems are doing a data comparison with the RAM bank now, but, as you can see, there hasn’t been much to report,” he flipped through some pages on a clip board he held. “It’s a bit early, but we should be getting something soon. I’m surprised you didn’t have this ready. It was your shift.” He looked up, suddenly perplexed by his friend’s demeanor.

“Robert, what is it?” He had caught a look of misery on Nordhausen’s face, so at odds with the man’s normal easy going nature, that he was struck by it.

“Oh, Paul,” Nordhausen moaned.

“What?” Dorland was now alarmed.

“Oh, Paul, something has happened…”

“Robert, what? Are you all right?”

“I don’t know… something is very wrong…”

“What are you talking about? What happened? You mean to say you did get a report before I arrived?” He rushed to Nordhausen’s side, eyes scanning the desk top as though he expected to see a variance report.

Nordhausen sat with his face in his hands. He couldn’t look at Dorland. “It was my fault, Paul. I… used the Arch…” he muttered, in a low voice, almost inaudibly.

“You what?”

“I used the Arch!” He lifted his head from his hands, and the look of despair was deep and clear. “I used the Arch and something changed.”

Paul stiffened. He held his clipboard to his chest, and said, slowly: “Robert, what did you do?”

“Nothing! I didn’t do anything! At least not anything I can clue on. But I must have done something, because things are clearly wrong.” Nordhausen gave him a pleading look. Suddenly the whole story came spilling out in a gush of disjointed narrative, clothed in rationalizations and justifications, causing Dorland to slowly sink into the other office chair while Nordhausen went on.

“So, you see, I didn’t do anything! I was just there, and—”

“Didn’t do anything?” Paul gave him an incredulous look. “You say you went out to the opera?”

“But I just watched the show… then went across the street to a club after and…”

“And what?”

Nordhausen hesitated, for the bit about his encounter with Wilde and Gilbert was a source of great anxiety to him. He started to tell his story and saw how Paul just put his hands over his ears with a flabbergasted look on his face.

“You didn’t do anything?” Paul just stared at him. “Robert, you shouldn’t have been there in the first place!”

“Yes, I know, I know…” Nordhausen covered his face in his palms again, wanting to hide from his own foolishness. “But I just don’t see the connection,” he muttered.

“What connection?”

“Between Wilde and the stone. How could an innocent session in a bar cause damage to the Rosetta Stone? I can’t see it.”

“What are you talking about?”

‘That’s the problem, Paul. It’s the stone. It’s broken, but I can’t figure how. I went there to look at the carvings, and I saw it… but it was wrong! The Rosetta Stone. Our whole understanding of the hieroglyphics was based upon that one object—but now it’s changed. What does it mean? How could it have happened?”

The recital had left Nordhausen drained, and he sat slumped in his desk chair, waiting now for Dorland to say something.

“I don’t know what to make of this, Robert. I have never even heard of this thing—what did you call it? The Rosetta Stone? And what’s all this about understanding the hieroglyphics? No one has ever translated ancient Egyptian writing. Yes, there are pyramid freaks, and conspiracy theorists and other cranks who claim to be able to read them, but they’ve remained a mystery for thousands of years.”

“No, no, no,” Nordhausen protested, waving his hand. “That’s just what I mean! Someone did translate the hieroglyphics. I was looking up the references only a moment ago. Champollion, a French scholar, identified the phonetic connection in the glyphs centuries ago, but none of that work is published now. Oh, God, what have I done?”

Paul put his clip board down and folded his arms. “This is too much for me to swallow at this point,” he said. “I’m still not sure what you’re driving at. You just told me that this guy’s work was never published. Do you realized how crazy that sounds? How could you know about something that was never—” Paul caught himself, and a squall of concern swept over his features.

Nordhausen’s empty emotions were suddenly filled with a backlash of anger. “Well I am not insane, if that’s what you’re thinking. I planned this very carefully. I told you I was going to check on the writing. It was a legitimate mission, though I know I should have cleared it with the rest of the team. In any case, what’s done is done. Yes, I had my toast with Wilde and Gilbert in the bar, and I went to the museum the very next day. It was well thought out. How long have you known me, Paul? Since high school! Maybe I shouldn’t have gone back, but that’s not the issue here. Something bigger is going on now. We’ve got to find out what happened to the Rosetta Stone!”

6

“Rosetta Stone!” Dorland shot back. “There you go again. What are you talking about? Look, I’m trying to be sympathetic here, but you’re not making any sense. What’s this stone you keep rambling on about?”

Nordhausen sighed heavily. “It was discovered in 1799, during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. They were trying to improve an old fort near the town of Rosetta and uncovered a huge slab of black basalt with inscriptions in three languages.”

“Wait a second,” Paul interrupted. “I’ve read that history many times. Sure, Napoleon invaded Egypt, and was stranded by the British Fleet. He fought a few battles, tried to march off to Palestine, then got tired of the whole campaign and escaped to leave all his men to fend for themselves. That’s all in the history, but I’ve never heard of this Rosetta thing.”

“Well he brought teams of savants with him. Do you remember that? They carried back all their records and artifacts and published volumes about them.”

“Yes, but there was nothing with a clue to translating hieroglyphics.”

“Don’t you see?” Nordhausen was getting frustrated now. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! There was an artifact. It was called the Rosetta Stone—perhaps the most significant find of the whole expedition! There were three languages: Demotic, Greek and the Hieroglyphics, and they all said the same thing. That was how Champollion made the connection between them. It was a touchstone, a key reference point that opened everything up.” He gave Paul a wild look, then changed his tack, hitting on some new thought. “Paul, I can read them,” Nordhausen insisted.

“Read what?”

“The hieroglyphics! I know what they mean—I’ve known about them for over thirty years. Hell, I’ve got old notebooks in my study—We’ve got to get over there!”

“Notebooks? Hold on now, Robert.” Nordhausen was up off his seat and looking about him, as though searching for something.

“Yes, notebooks. Good lord, what if they’re gone too?”

“Sit down, Robert. You’re getting weird on me now.”

“Sit down? Is that all you have to say about this? I thought you were the time theoretician here. Think man! I just came through the Arch, only minutes ago in fact. No, I wasn’t in the bathroom. I lied about that, but you’ve got to believe me on this point. I was back in Old London, just like I said, and I’ve done something to change the Meridian. But I remember the world I came from, Paul, and it had the Rosetta Stone, the hieroglyphics and all. I remember how to read the glyphs, and I can prove it to you. Hell, that’s why I went on the mission in the first place—to read samples of the hieroglyphics that might have been lost to our time. I figured they might still be intact in an earlier time, and what better place to look than the British Museum? So I went back, damnit. Yes, I screwed up again, and I’m the first to admit that. But I know I’m right about the stone, the glyphs, and all the rest.”

Paul gave him a long, searching look. He scratched the back of his head and started to say something, then caught himself, the change in his thinking obvious on his face. Robert’s jibe about the time theory had pricked his attention. If it was true, and the alert had been called because of his friend’s use of the Arch, then Robert would have been in a Nexus Point, a protected bubble in the stream of time. He would know things, aspects and elements of his original Meridian, while everyone outside the Nexus would remain oblivious. “Alright,” he began. “Let’s slow down here and take this one step at a time. You say you used the Arch.”

“Yes.”

“And you went to London and had a drink with Oscar Wilde and company—just like you, Robert. What were you thinking? You don’t get involved with Primes! How many times do we have to tell you these things?”

“Well it wasn’t my fault. I was just sitting there, trying to mind my own business and they latched on to me. The next thing I know I was judging a poetry contest. I had no intention—”

“Yes you did, my friend. You went to the opera, right? No fault in that. We were going to watch Shakespeare when this whole thing started. But, just like Maeve warned, you can’t resist the urge to start poking around in the history. I’ll bet you loved every minute of that little encounter in the nightclub. What did you say you were drinking?”

“Oh, come now. I was in complete control of my faculties at all times. Yes, I conversed with them, Wilde and Gilbert both. But it was just happenstance. I never had any intention of tampering with a Prime Mover, and I tried to extricate myself from the situation as soon as I could.”

“Happenstance? That’s the point Robert—that’s exactly what a Pushpoint is—something completely innocuous in the immediate milieu that has enormous power to catalyze the future.”

“Do you think that’s where the damage occurred?”

“Damage?”

“Yes, man. I’ve been trying to tell you that the Rosetta Stone was damaged! All the Hieroglyphics were gone. That’s why no one ever made the connection between the languages, don’t you see? I’ve done something to change things—God only knows what—just like we changed things after the Palma Event. We never did figure out what happened that time, Paul. Neither one of us got anywhere near Lawrence’s explosives, but yet we did something to alter the event. We stumbled on one of your pushpins and everything was different.”

“Pushpoints,” Paul corrected, very annoyed.

“Whatever!”

Nordhausen was getting quite exasperated now. “The point is that we did something to the Meridian without even knowing it. We changed things, yet we all remember what was supposed to happen that night because we were in the Nexus…” His eyes widened with sudden realization. “That’s it, Paul! That’s it! I was in a Nexus Point! That’s why I remember it all—why I can still read the hieroglyphics, because I’m retaining memories from the time line I came from.” He gave Paul a searching look, almost pleading. “You’ve got to believe me,” he breathed, slumping back into his office chair. “Kelly’s Golems will bear me out. There’s no way they could miss something like this.”

Paul took a deep breath, his mind resting in his own time theory now. The professor was quite distressed, but was certainly convinced that he had done something to change the continuum.

“Very well,” he said, granting Nordhausen a measure of respect. “I agree. If you used the Arch, then you were certainly in a Nexus. Let’s assume that all this is true. All we have to go on now is your word that things are different—that we’re supposed to understand these hieroglyphics, and we don’t.”

“The notebooks, Paul.” Nordhausen held up a finger. “Let’s get over to my study and see if they’ve changed. Would they change?” He looked to Paul for the answer. “Champollion’s work vanished. God, what if my notebooks are altered as well? What does the time theory say about a situation like this? Would my personal effects be altered even if I was in a Nexus? Come on, man—You dreamt all this up!”

Dorland relented, giving the professor the benefit of the doubt. “You’re saying you wrote the hieroglyphics in a notebook?”

“Yes, I kept a journal using hieroglyphics instead of Roman letters—A little code I was playing with. Will it still be there? Will it vanish, or change, just like Lawrence’s Seven Pillars?”

“No…” Paul was suddenly deep in thought, pulled into the crux of the problem by Nordhausen’s obvious enthusiasm and distress. “No, if you were in a Nexus Point when the change occurred then that would make you a Free Variable, like we all were Free Variables during that first mission. In that case…” He paused, his hand playing over his chin as he thought. “Well, the integrity of your own personal Time Meridian should remain quite stable. It’s very likely that your notebooks would be unaltered. The knowledge you claim to have in your head about this stone relies upon them. They would have to exist.”

“Then we’ve got to get over to the study! It will prove everything I’ve been saying!”

“But—” Paul held up a warning finger. “You have apparently created a Gordian knot. Without the original work of the scholars who deciphered the hieroglyphics, then how could you have ever learned to decipher them, or even written your notebooks? That means you may be exposed to—”

Nordhausen was up off his chair before Paul could finish his thought, reaching out to take his friend by the arm and pull him along.

“It’s clear that we won’t resolve this by speculation. Let’s go look! My study is just a few minutes away.”

“Hold on,” said Paul. “We can prove it right here.” He sat down at a terminal and began typing.

“What are you doing?” Nordhausen was at his side, still very agitated, his impatience getting the better of him now.

“You say there was something called the Rosetta Stone. The Golems are out searching the Internet right now, but let me do a direct query to the on-line RAM bank—the reference bank we’ve kept running since the incident in Wadi Rumm.” It was not long before he had a report in hand that confirmed everything his friend was saying.

“See what I mean?” Nordhausen was delighted. “It’s all there: the discovery date, the significance of the find, Champollion’s work and even good photos. Look here,” he pointed at an image. “This whole section was gone when I saw the stone in the British Museum and, without that, no one could make the connection with the other languages. Come on—let’s go get my notebooks and see if they’ve survived!”

“What about Kelly and Maeve?” Paul cautioned. “There’s an alert on, and we can’t just leave the Arch facility in the middle of things. The Golems haven’t even finished their report yet.”

The phone rang, on the emergency line reserved for the senior team members, and they both craned their necks to look at it. Paul was the first to the receiver, smiling when he heard Maeve’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hello, Maeve,” he began. “You coming in soon? We’ve got an alert from Kelly’s Golems and… What’s that?… Oh lord!” His eyes widened with shock and surprise and Nordhausen felt his stomach churn. Paul listened, his expression becoming more grave with each passing second.

“We’re coming right over,” he said. “No, don’t worry about the Arch, the Golems are working the report now and it will take them at least an hour… Yes, I’ve got Robert right here. He’s on to something as well. Hold on, Maeve. We’ll be there in a flash.”

“What?” Robert was about to explode.

“It’s Kelly,” said Paul. “He’s collapsed. They’ve got him over at University Hospital. I’m afraid your notebooks will have to wait, Robert.”

“Collapsed?” The look on Robert’s face was plain, and it was clear that he immediately associated this news with his own misdeed in using the Arch. The professor was up and heading for the door in an instant, but something jarred Paul’s thinking and his anxiety increased with every step his friend took. The notebooks…

“Robert, wait! Stand where you are! Don’t take another step!” His tone was so urgent and strained that it served as a strong leash, jerking his friend around, who stared at him with wide eyed surprise.

“Now what?” Nordhausen gave him an exasperated look.

“The notebooks,” Paul repeated. “The Meridian has changed, Robert. There’s been a Transformation. Don’t you see? I know nothing about these hieroglyphics, the Rosetta Stone, and all the rest. But the information is safe and sound in Kelly’s RAM bank—and in your head.”

“Yes, yes—but we can talk about this on the way, Paul. Come on!”

“Let me finish!” Paul’s voice was riveting. “It’s not a Gordian knot, Robert. It’s Paradox I’m worried about now. It’s you. The information about the Rosetta stone is in your head too, alive and well. But if you set foot outside the protective bubble of the Arch Nexus, then…”

“Then what?”

“You expose yourself to Paradox—Free Variable or not. Time has no way to account for your knowledge of the glyphs if you set one foot outside this room.” He folded his arms, his breathing finally stilled now that he had given birth to his fear and delivered his warning.

Nordhausen just stared at him.

Part III

Schroedinger’s Box

“Contradiction should awaken the attention, not passion.”

—Thomas Fuller: Gnomologia

7

The revelation had shocked the professor, but his emotions transitioned quickly as he thought on it.

“You mean to say that I’m trapped in here? If I leave the Lab then I’m going to be… erased, like Kelly?”

“Possibly,” said Paul.

“But you said I was a Free Variable.”

“That too,” Paul equivocated.

“Well, which is it? Am I going to vanish or not?”

“I don’t know—but why take the risk? I can go check on Kelly while you remain on station here. We’ve got an alert on, remember? The whole point of this setup was to get one of us safely under the influence of the Arch Nexus so we could research the Variance and see what could be done about it.”

“But Kelly…”

“I’ll go. You stay here, safe in the Nexus.”

Nordhausen hesitated, torn between Paul’s warning and his overriding sense of guilt, heightened by the fear that he was somehow responsible for Kelly’s collapse. His emotions roiled, and the tension was pulling at his face as he struggled to know what to do. Then he reached an inner conclusion, his jaw set, his eyes hard as he spoke.

“No,” he said flatly.

“But Robert, I’m not fooling around here. The risk is very real. You know about the hieroglyphics, and that creates an impossible contradiction in the world outside this room—outside the influence of the Nexus Point. As long as the Arch is running we can maintain a safe Nexus here until we decide what to do.”

“No!” Robert’s tone was even more adamant. “Until we decide what to do? Listen to yourself, Paul. How long might that take? We can’t keep the Arch running forever—and I damn well won’t be a prisoner here because of a glitch in your time theory.”

“It’s more than a glitch, Robert—it’s Paradox. Christ, we’ve one member of the team down already. Now what if you vanish in a haze the instant we set foot outside this lab?”

“I won’t,” said Nordhausen. “I’m a Free Radical—you said it yourself—and more than that: I’m a Prime Mover. My head is a living process. It’s a mini-Nexus all on its own. Time wouldn’t dare lay her greedy little hands on me. I was the one who deciphered the Palma clues that led us to Minifir. I’m an original Founding Father. You hear me?” He shouted that last bit at the ceiling, not at Paul, as if he were hurling a challenge at Mother Time herself, daring her to interfere.

“No,” he said again. “Kelly’s down, and I’m responsible—responsible for it all—for every living being outside that door: all the misery, the suffering, for everything that’s going amiss now, or ever will go wrong because of my foolish meddling. It all depends on me. I’m the one that caused it, and if time wants me, then by God, let her have me. But I’ve got to see about Kelly, one way or another, no matter what happens.”

His expression was almost pleading now, tormented by everything he had concluded. Paul knew that there would be no stopping him, so he stepped quickly to Nordhausen’s side, putting his arm on his shoulder.

“Then we’ll go together,” he said with finality. “I’ll second your motion. If time wants to pick a fight with you, then I’ve got your back, Robert. She’ll have to take on the two of us. Let’s go.”

They started for the door. In spite of his resolve, Nordhausen could not help the thumping of his heart as they pushed it open and stepped into the foyer. His mouth was dry and a sheen of sweat misted his brow. The cooler air of the outer foyer played upon his forehead, giving him a momentary start when he felt the chill.

He hesitated, a shiver taking him as he stood there. What if Paul was right? Then he felt his friend’s reassuring touch at his elbow, and his strength returned.

“I’m a bloody damn Prime!” he bellowed, his voice echoing in the foyer. “You want me? Here I bloody well am!”

Paul could not help smiling, in spite of his own anxiety. As they pressed ahead, he cast furtive glances this way and that, as if he expected to see a pack of ravenous hounds fall upon them the instant they set foot outside the door. There was a bluster of wind outside, a low growl that preyed upon his emotions.

But nothing happened to them. They pressed on, Nordhausen boldly pushing at the outer door until it gave way and they were out in the twilight of the early evening as it settled on the parking lot.

“Well, that’s done it,” Paul breathed. “We’re outside the Nexus for sure now. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” said Nordhausen. “I told you, Paul. You said it yourself. We’re all Prime Movers now—possibly more. We’re imperative to the whole notion of time travel. You don’t fuck with an imperative, my friend. I’m fine—you’re fine— “

“Then what’s happened to Kelly?” said Paul, and a bit of the bravado eclipsed in Nordhausen’s eyes. “I wouldn’t be so smug until we figure that out, Robert. But the fact that I was proven wrong just now leads me to believe that the Nexus is deeper than we thought. It’s not just the physical Nexus about the Arch now… it’s something more. Time is waiting. She isn’t certain what to do. I’m not exactly certain either, but whatever the answer is, you and I have something to do with the outcome.”

~

The two men had much on their minds as they drove to University Hospital. When they got there, they rushed to Kelly’s room, and met a worried Maeve Lindford, pacing the hallway in front of his door. She was wearing a casual khaki colored suit over a loose white silk blouse. She had evidently been called away from her classroom, since she was carrying her pigskin book bag slung over her shoulder and had a brace of dry-erase markers in her breast pocket.

As soon as she noticed the two men, she hurried down the hall toward them, and said, “The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him, none of the medicine seems to have any effect on him… he’s disoriented… in and out of consciousness, and…” She gave them both a searching look. “I think it might be temporal… some kind of after effect from the first project drop. God only knows. I thought you said you two had this figured out!” She wheeled in anger. “So what are you going to do now?”

Dorland held up his hands in front of him warding off the emotional onslaught. “Maeve, we don’t know what’s going on just yet. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Calm down—”

She cut in. “Don’t give me that. You know exactly what is going on here. One of your time shenanigans is expressing itself! Some consequence from whatever you two have been up to since you started that machine up again.”

“Maeve…” Nordhausen tried to intercede.

“And you! You are in this hand and glove! Are you satisfied? Kelly’s life signs are so faint they can barely read him at times. Damn it! Fix this—now!”

“Please, Maeve, we can’t talk about the project here,” said Paul. “There are too many variables.” He looked around him, noting the passing of nurses and orderlies in the halls, and the open doorways leading to other rooms.

Lindford pulled herself together, and brushed back a loose strand of red hair that had gotten in her face. “Yes, I understand but…” She broke down, her voice choked with emotion.

Paul and Robert instinctively went to comfort her. “Come,” said Robert. “Let’s get out of the hall.”

It was a semi-private room, and Kelly’s bed was screened off by an opaque blue curtain. Paul peeked behind it, thankful that there was no other patient occupying the other bed. His eyes were immediately drawn to his good friend Kelly, who lay on an adjustable bed, as though paralyzed. He was hooked up to heart monitor, a glucose drip, and an EKG record brain wave response. The lines were moving, tracing a thin milky phosphoresce on the monitor screens, but there was little life to them.

Kelly’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused. His head lolled in their direction, as if he was aware of their presence. Paul leaned in, talking to Kelly as he knelt by the bed.

“Hello, mister. It’s me. Can you hear me, Kelly? How did this happen to you?”

“Just came on…” Kelly’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Has this ever happened to you before?”

Kelly seemed to gain a bit of strength. “I’ve had random fits where I felt… precarious. You know… Like that night on the project. I felt like I was slipping… Like I might just vanish into nothing.” His breathing was labored as he spoke.

“Stop it, Paul!” Maeve hissed. “See how he is? It’s temporal variance—I’m certain of it. If we had a lab machine hooked up to him you’d probably say his pattern signature was fading or something. Can’t you see it? I thought putting that DVD in the memorial was supposed to fix all this! Why is this happening?”

Paul gave her a serious look, deep in thought. “Kelly,” he said again, with more urgency. “Please, I have to know if this came on suddenly, or if this is an effect that has been accumulating over time.”

“What?” Kelly closed his eyes.

“Kelly. Kelly Ramer! Listen to me! When did this happen? Can you remember that?”

“When?”

“Oh, leave him alone, Paul,” Maeve protested again. “I can tell you exactly when it happened. Come outside. Robert, you stay here with Kelly.”

Paul nodded and the two of them stepped out into the hall. Nordhausen gave them a glance, a worried expression on his face, but he soon turned his attention to Kelly.

“Robert?” Kelly had opened his eyes again, and he was trying to force a smile.

“I’m here, Kelly. The others stepped out to talk. So… how do you feel?

“Pretty damn mortal.”

The professor was distracted by the beeping of the hospital monitors, which seemed to speed up, then taper off again.

“It’ll be okay, my friend,” Robert consoled. “Paul will know what to do. Just be here now.”

“Where?” said Kelly. “What time is it?”

“What does that matter.” Nordhausen put his hand on Kelly’s brow, feeling an odd coolness there. He certainly wasn’t running a temperature, which ruled out any sudden illness.

“You don’t understand…” Kelly labored to speak again. “This isn’t life for me, Robert. I should be dead now… I’ve thought about that every second I’ve lived since the mission. Every second of every moment. Hell… Maybe I am turning into a wraith…”

“No good with that sort of talk, Kelly. You just hold on now. We’ve got an alert on the Golem line. Your program is running numbers and working up the report right now. We’ll get to the bottom of this. You’ll see. You are going to be fine. Maeve will stay here with you, and Paul and I will go take care of this business. You’ll will be out of here in no time! I promise!”

“Okay… I just feel so strange… wish the damn drugs would help. What are they shooting me up with?” His head lolled up to look at the glucose drip.

“Just fluids and sugars to help stabilize your system.”

“Sugar buzz…” Kelly began to drift. “Got to rest…”

“Sure, sure, just rest. I’ll wait here till Maeve and Paul come in, and we will take good care of you. Just relax, don’t worry about anything. You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, fine…” He closed his eyes and lapsed into silence.

Nordhausen turned the lights down, and sat in a chair by the bed. He watched his friend’s breathing, his chest hardly moving, his breath the barest whisper on the oxygen feed line near his nose. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes and his face betrayed the deep emotion he was feeling now.

“My fault,” he whispered. “I did this…” The hospital monitors were pulsing calmly as Kelly seemed to be falling into a deeper sleep.

The door opened again and Maeve stepped in first. Paul remained outside, gesturing at Robert to come. Robert gave Kelly one last look and stood up, offering the bedside chair to Maeve.

A moment later the two men were standing in the busy hospital corridor, speaking to one another in low whispers.

“So, what’s the plan?” Robert was eager to do something to change the situation.

“Well this is all very theoretical, and I haven’t done any real time mapping yet, but Maeve and I think we have to go check the DVD in the grave—you know, the memorial site where we buried our mementos for Kelly.”

The professor glanced at the open door to Kelly’s room, as though afraid that Maeve would overhear them. “Does she know?” His voice was a whisper in Paul’s ear.

“Not everything. She thinks the alert is the cause of the incident. I didn’t mention your… well, you know.”

“Right,” the professor agreed, glancing over his shoulder. “Not the time for it. But what do we do now?”

“We’ve got to get back to the Arch. I’m pretty sure the Nexus from your mission has dissipated by now, but we still have the shelter of the Arch Nexus as long as we can keep it running? We’ll check the Golem report and then get on over to the memorial site to see what’s up.”

The implications of that finally came home to the professor. “You think someone may have tampered with the DVD?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Okay, let’s go. But what would that mean, Paul?”

“I’ll explain in the car. Let’s say goodbye to Kelly and Maeve and get moving.”

~

They returned to Paul’s car, a white Honda Civic that he had been fond of for many years. As soon as they were underway Nordhausen returned to the subject of their errand.

“Why do you want to go to the gravesite?”

“We think the DVD might not be safe there. As you know, we counted on the time travelers of the future, who saved Kelly from a paradoxical disintegration. We counted on their finding the DVD we buried in the grave so they could know when and where to snatch Kelly, just before he vanished, and it worked. When the Nexus Point dissipated, they sent him back.”

Safe and sound, it had appeared, until this event.

Nordhausen asked, “So what do you want to do?”

Dorland thought a moment. “Maeve thinks that’s not a safe place. She wants me to get the DVD, and put it in a safe deposit box or something, where we can be more assured of its security. We’ll set up a foundation to maintain it or something. And I don’t think that’s such a bad idea.”

“Security? But who would want to dig up a grave site? Are you thinking some gardener got his work order wrong and went trowling through Kelly’s memorial ground?”

“Maybe,” he stretched out the word, to emphasize how remote he thought the possibility, “someone might get there before Mr. Graves’ friends find it in the future. That would immediately expose Kelly to paradox again.”

“Someone? Who are you talking about?”

“Remember that satellite phone call you made from Wadi Rumm?”

“Yes. What’s that got to do with this?”

“Whose phone was it?” Paul gave him a knowing wink.

“You mean to say that you think Rasil… that the Assassins…”

“We don’t know, but as I said before, that call would have been easy enough to trace. No matter how much we try to cover up our activities here, it could have been an obvious pointer to this point in the continuum. They know we have an Arch complex operational here, and they damn well know we must have had something to do with the Palma thing.”

“But you said we were all Prime Movers—that they couldn’t touch us without risking the entire future progression of the Time technology. Look at me. I walked right out of the Nexus and I’m still fit as a fiddle.”

“That might be true—at least I hoped as much. I think we may have a Time Conundrum on our hands. Time isn’t certain what to do with this situation, and so she left you in one piece while she’s sorting things through. But look at Kelly. Prime mover or not, he’s in jeopardy right now. Your integrity may be compromised as well. But who really knows?”

Nordhausen took a deep breath. “OK… suppose someone is trying to tamper with that DVD. That means they’ve come here—to our time?

“Not necessarily. They may have arrived yesterday, a week ago, last month. Who knows? They may have found the thing in the year 2050, or three years before Graves and his people were slated to find it.”

“What? So how does this explain Kelly’s present condition?”

Dorland was becoming less and less sure. “Well,” he said, feeling his way as he went, “Paradox is retroactive. At least that’s what I’m starting to think now. If they get their hands on the DVD in the year 2050, like I suggested, then Time has to do some quick editing. None of the events lived by Kelly in this Meridian would have been possible.”

“Editing? That’s appalling! How could time rewind itself and undo all those events. Kelly’s been safe and sound for months now. Think of all the little pushpins he’s been responsible for in all that time.”

“True,” said Dorland, overlooking his friend’s persistent error with the terminology. “I admit I’m reaching. But Maeve is convinced this is a Temporal Variation, and we’ve got to check on that DVD. In fact, we should do this now, before we go to the lab. Kelly’s life is in danger here.”

Nordhausen looked sharply at Dorland. “You think it’s gone, don’t you.”

Dorland kept his eyes on the road. “No, I don’t, I just agree with Maeve, that we should keep it in a safer place.”

Nordhausen was silent for a moment. “Kelly is in a Schroedinger’s Box,” he said with a sudden finality. Dorland’s gave him an odd look, waiting for him to explain himself.

Nordhausen went on. “Kelly is like the cat in the Schroedinger’s Box. Except, he’s outside the box, but we don’t know if he is alive or dead!”

“Go on.” Paul was listening very closely now, his attention divided between his driving and Nordhausen.

“Well,” said Nordhausen, slowing down as his theory ramified in his mind, “as you know, Schroedinger set up a thought experiment, in which he put a cat in a box, with a bottle of prussic acid and a trigger on the bottle hooked up to a Geiger Counter.”

“Yes, yes, and the Geiger counter was monitoring a source of ionizing radiation, with even odds that it would or would not emit a detectible particle in any hour.” Dorland hurried him along.

“Slow down, let me work this out,” Nordhausen protested. “Okay, let me see… In the thought experiment, after the passage of an hour, the source either has or has not radiated, and the cat is or is not dead, but occupies a condition that is both, until you open the box and look.”

“Yes, yes, Schroedinger tossed that out as an offhand comment, and said that it was solved by observation, and a half dead and half alive cat in a box was a logical nonsense. Many liberal artists like you take it to mean more than it does.”

“Well, whatever nonsense it is, we have a black box, and we don’t know what is in it, and we are relying on what is in it to maintain Kelly’s existence against Paradox. Sounds like a Schroedinger’s box to me!”

Dorland went into a brown funk as he drove, his mind wrestling with time theory even as he twisted the wheel to navigate the narrow road. They were in the Berkeley Hills, working their way along a wooded road behind the university and the Lab complex.

The night had come early with the appearance of a low, wet front. The sky was darkening, although the rims of the clouds in the western horizon were made brilliant by the low sun. It was suddenly cold and blustery, with a light rain speckling the windshield. Dorland gripped the wheel harder, his head poking forward to see through the rain. Thankfully, a full moon was riding high through the moving clouds, illuminating the way ahead with a silvery sheen.

“A Schroedinger’s box!” Dorland came out with that very suddenly, as though his thinking had just reached a sure conclusion. “How can you plan for something like that?”

8

Nordhausen was gripping the handle over the door in a struggle against the momentum of the car as it rounded a tight bend in the road. His face was lit by the green glow from the instrument dash, the only light in the darkness of the cabin.

“Perhaps Maeve is right,” he said. “Maybe we should just dismantle the whole shop, shred the documents, and part out the hardware.”

“No! Taking care of Kelly is one thing; the project is another matter entirely. Once we recover the DVD, and figure out how to protect it, Kelly will be fine, and we will be able to continue the project—and find out about your Rosetta Stone for starters.”

“What is the project now Paul? What are we supposed to do with it all?”

“We’re standing a watch,” Paul said. “We’re out on the walls of eternity with our eyes puckered against the dark.”

“Very poetic, you always overuse that puckered eyes thing, but what does it mean?”

“The alarm just went off and we’ve got to get a line on what’s happening. Tell me: when was your mission departure time?”

The professor adopted that sheepish look again, regret plain on his face. “Oh four hundred.”

“And your retraction?”

“Thirty minutes later.”

“How long were you there?”

“Forty-eight hours, though it seemed like forever.”

“And when did you meet the Primes?”

“What? You mean Wilde and company? Well…” Nordhausen rolled his eyes, thinking. “I was about an hour just taking things in until I got to my hotel room. Then another three hours until I made it to the Opera house. The performance was two hours or so, and I suppose I met Wilde an hour later in the club.”

“That’s seven hours—in that milieu, correct?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But what is this all about?”

Paul squinted, slowing to round another tight curve. “Well that’s odd,” he said. “The alarm went off at three minutes after four—exactly—just a few minutes after you opened the continuum, in our time line.

“Yes, I know,” Nordhausen admitted with a shrug. “I forgot about Kelly’s Golems. I mean, there hasn’t been an alert since your inadvertent fall into that nest of Assassins at Massiaf. I completely forgot that my mission would set off the alarm. Stupid of me.”

“Wait a second,” Paul stopped him. “Hear me out. The timing on these things is critical. The Golems call home the instant they detect a variation. The first call came in at four-oh-three. That’s three minutes after you breached the continuum—our time—but that’s almost five hours at your target milieu.”

“Five hours? How can you know something like that?”

Paul thought for a second. “Four point eight hours, to be a little more precise. If you were running a 48 hour breach over 30 minutes lab processing time, then each minute here was 96 minutes there. See what I mean?”

“I suppose so, but—”

“Well, what were you doing five hours into your mission?” He went over the professor’s story again in his head, vocalizing events and looking to Nordhausen for confirmation. “An hour futzing about, three hours in your room… Why, that would put you at the opera when the alarm came in.”

“Yes, right in the middle of the performance, I suppose.”

Paul brought the car to a halt at a stop sign, taking advantage of the brief break from driving to hone in on something. “Think now, Robert. Did you have any significant contact with locals during the opera?”

“Not that I can recall. I was so thrilled with the performance that I was totally wrapped up in it. Why, I didn’t say a word to anyone.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely. I just sat there.”

“You didn’t try to pull anything like you had planned for the Shakespeare play, right? You didn’t go back stage…”

“Not at all. What are you getting at?”

“The alarm went off before you encountered the Primes at the club.” Paul started off again, adjusting his windshield wipers against a blowing squall of rain.

Nordhausen stared at him, the implications of Paul’s statement finally hitting home. “Very clever,” he said, feeling a bit relieved, but still somewhat confused.

“Assuming your estimate of the time is accurate.”

“The show started at 8:00pm, promptly. I looked at my watch when the curtain rose.”

“Too bad you didn’t do that when you arrived. Then we’d have a real good time reference.”

Nordhausen’s eyes widened with a sudden recollection. “The bells!”

“What?”

“Oranges and lemons, sing the bells of St. Clements… The bells, Paul! I heard them ring the very moment I arrived. Why, I counted four—yes, exactly four PM—just a few seconds after I got there.”

“Good for you! That nails down the time, so it looks like the contamination happened while you were at the opera.”

“But I wasn’t doing anything. I was just delighted to watch the play. What harm could I have caused by just sitting there?”

“Who knows. Pushpoints are very fragile things.”

“But how could that have destroyed the Rosetta Stone? I just don’t see the connection.”

Paul was silent for a time. “Neither do I,” he said at last, his voice laden with an air of finality.

Nordhausen picked up on the tonal change at once. “You mean to say… you don’t think I’m responsible?”

“Nope.”

The professor sighed with great relief. “Thank God—but how can you be sure? You’re the one who says these little pushpins could be anywhere. Suppose I took someone’s seat at the opera, like you said, and they moved elsewhere.” He spun out a scenario, inwardly hoping he would not end up shifting the blame back on his own shoulders again. “So this guy moves and has a conversation with someone at his new seat—someone he was never supposed to meet, and the dislocation caused some sort of cascading event in the continuum. You follow me? Could that have caused the damage?”

“Yes, I follow you, and no, it could not.”

“How can you be certain?” The professor wanted to know if he was really off the hook.

“I’m certain. I thought this from the very first moment you came out with this.”

“What? And you kept it to yourself!”

“It’s elementary, my dear professor.” Paul smiled, pleased to be Holmes to Nordhausen’s Watson. “You say this artifact was discovered in 1799 by Napoleon’s troops?”

“Yes, at Rosetta. That’s how it got the name.”

“Fine. And what year was your breaching point set for?”

“1880. The year Pirates of Penzance opened at the Opera Comique in London.”

“So how does a contamination in 1880 cause damage to a stone carving that was discovered nearly a hundred years earlier?”

“Right…” Nordhausen groped about the argument, feeling he way forward. “The curator! When I saw the damage to the stone he claimed he had taken very good care of it—that it was always that way!”

“So the damage had to occur earlier on the Meridian.” Paul slowed the Honda to look for the entrance to the memorial grounds. Nordhausen leaned back, exhaling deeply.

“Thank God,” he breathed. “It wasn’t me. Why didn’t you tell me if you suspected this all along?”

“You needed to sit with it for a while,” Paul chided. “You ran off to Reading Station to retrieve Lawrence’s manuscript, then dragged me off to Wadi Rumm for a tour of the Crusades. Now this. I wanted you to stew in your own pot for a while, my friend.”

Nordhausen was going to say something, but he caught himself, nodding his head.

“I suppose I had it coming,” he agreed at last. “Yet I can’t tell you how relieved I am! I thought it was all my fault—the stone, the hieroglyphics, Kelly. All of it.”

“Well you can finally be done with that,” said Paul, “because I don’t think you had anything to do with Kelly’s situation either. We may find out your meddling caused changes in this Meridian, but we won’t know that until we get the Golem report. It’s a pretty fair bet that you didn’t damage this Rosetta Stone you keep talking about. Didn’t you hear me when I first came in? The initial reports showed a spatial locus in the Middle East—and you were in London.”

Robert gave him a wide eyed look. “Yes… Then I couldn’t be the one responsible for the contamination. But who then? How did it happen?”

“You should be.” There was an ominous tone to that, and Paul gave the professor a hard look.

“What now?” he asked.

“I think we both know who might be behind this business, Robert.”

“You mean Rasil and his confederates?”

“Possibly—in fact, very likely. There’s no doubt he learned of your phone call from the digital log on his gizmo. A simple number trace would give him Kelly’s cell phone number, and it would ID our good buddy clear enough. So, in one way, you still may be responsible for what’s happening to Kelly. Someone is on to us, and they’re trying to counter what we’ve been doing with the project.”

“Damn…” Nordhausen nodded his head gravely. “We have to find out what is going on… is that the place?” He pointed to a wrought iron gate up ahead, marking the entrance to the memorial site.

They passed a painted white sign blowing wildly in the rain: Eternal Grove Cemetery. They selected the spot when they thought Kelly was lost, burying a few mementoes in a shallow grave, on a isolated hillside still far from development, a peaceful oak grove surrounded by green pastureland and harboring a small cemetery. Now the oak trees were heaving furiously in the wind, bulging black shapes in the dark. A heavy chain bound the white painted gate, rattling with the wind. Nordhausen hopped out to open it, while Dorland drove on through.

Old oak leaves were blowing, stirred up by the storm. Nordhausen waved the car by, and secured the chain. They were very much alone, in fact they hadn’t seen another car for miles on the road, but Paul’s intimations had unnerved him. Thankfully, the rain was abating somewhat, and the professor ran down the drive after the white Honda, which finally came to a stop where the driveway opened on a pathway into the memorial grounds.

After the sharp crunching of tires on the gravel, the silence was acute. Spread before them in the moonlight was a rolling hillside graveyard of several acres, descending to a stream that wound away to the valley in the distance. The shadows of clouds raced across the headstones, making them flash when the moonlight suddenly bathed them again. Occasional optimistic frogs started to croak fitfully in the unseen distance.

Dorland got out, opened the trunk of the Honda and the two men pulled out a pair of shovels, a pick and a pry-bar wrapped in a blanket tied with bungee cords.

“Can you find it in this murk?” asked Nordhausen.

“It’s over here.”

He started down the left arm of the loop with a shovel in his hand, his lanky frame bent forward against a gust of wind. Nordhausen followed with the other shovel and the tools.

They heard a car approach on the main road and stopped walking, their hackles raised with alarm. It was just a passing vehicle, but it was clear that they both were quite on edge.

“Good thing the moon’s out.” said Nordhausen.

“If only it weren’t raining,” Paul complained. Dorland was looking around for landmarks. He located a familiar stone, a fine marble urn with cherubs, 1807 – 1879, Matilda Hibbard, Beloved Wife and Mother. The rain was short and brisk, the tail end of a squall. It had darkened the granite headstones, and made the polished marble gleam. He walked around a few tilted headstones, and found Kelly’s, a modest plaque set flat against the ground.

Behind the plaque, the sod was humped up, and had fresh cuts around the edges. The ground bore the unmistakable mark of tampering.

“This has been opened.” said Nordhausen.

“It sure looks like it. Probably within the last couple days, possibly even hours.”

The two men looked at each other, wondering if they should go ahead and do what they had come to do in the first place.

“Well, we have to know,” said Paul. “That’s the whole point of a Schroedinger’s box. You make your reality when you look inside. Let’s dig.”

He waded in with a strong foot on his shovel, and heaved away the first clod. They wedged the memorial plaque aside and for the next ten minutes the two men delved into the shallow grave. At first the work was muddy, but soon they hit dry earth. The expected thud came suddenly when the professor’s shovel hit something hard.

“There’s our Schroedinger’s box,” said Paul. Without speaking, they cleared off the last of the dirt.

Whoever opened the gravesite before them hadn’t bothered to pry the lid off. They had just hacked into the top with an axe, leaving an ugly breach in the box.

“It’s kind of odd,” said Robert. “It feels like a desecration, even though Kelly was never here.”

Dorland stooped to get a better look, thrusting his arm into the hole in the box and rooting about. He pulled his hand out and sat back on his haunches.

“Well, Mr. Schroedinger?” asked Nordhausen.

“The cat is dead,” said Paul. “It’s gone. Someone’s got the DVD.”

“Who could have done this?”

“God only knows, but we have our suspicions, right? If it wasn’t Rasil or his men it was someone else. Someone from the future. They’re the only ones who could possibly know about this.”

“But we were going to keep it all secret,” Nordhausen protested. “Keep it to ourselves.”

“Someone had to learn about it or they could not have pulled Kelly to safety in the first place. We have to look at this clearly, Robert. One side used us to help them reverse Palma. The other side is fighting back. Maybe it’s Rasil, or his masters. Maybe it’s Sinan and his Assassins. This sure is a devious way to try and do in Kelly—just like something the Assassins might dream up.”

“So now what?” The professor flapped his arms against the cold. “Whoever took it, can destroy it, if they haven’t already. My god, what if Kelly’s gone?”

“I don’t think so,” said Paul. He was suddenly excited. “Because this wasn’t the only copy. There still must be a data somewhere on the archives at the lab. We’ve got to get over there! We have to go and burn a hundred DVDs of Kelly, and stash them everywhere. Put it on a Yahoo server somewhere as hidden code on a web page. Make it part of Kelly’s Golem program—anything to insure that the copy will survive. We have to publish this information so much that it can be always available… not hide it! Publish it! We had it all wrong. The only way to maintain his probability is to assert it vigorously.”

9

On the road back they began to sort out the problem of who took the DVD. The night had calmed, although thin tails of clouds were still rushing aloft. The moon loomed in a cobalt blue sphere, with bright white stars dotting the sky overhead as the storm front passed.

Nordhausen said suddenly: “It’s clear now that there are other people moving through time.”

“I was afraid you were going to bring that up,” said Paul. “It’s a lot to start thinking about just now.”

“Well, we can’t avoid it. Someone physically dug up Kelly’s DVD and stole it. No one knew about that except the four of us.”

“No one in this milieu. But they were the ones who rescued Kelly in the first place, so at some future time the existence and location of the DVD becomes a known fact.”

“Exactly,” Nordhausen said excitedly. “We assumed they excavated it decades from now, and found the DVD, and had the idea to save Kelly. But now, look, we are going to try to make it so they don’t have to dig up the grave. So we don’t know how they found it… Maybe someone stole it, and they got it from them? Maybe they came back in time, and picked it up now, instead of in their own time. Suppose this is how they found it, perhaps only just hours ago because of what we’re about to do.”

Dorland interrupted him. “That’s the same Schroedinger’s Cat argument. But it’s a gross analogy trying to describe a quantum puzzle. Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything, it just makes you think. Niels Bohr said the cat existed in both states, alive and dead, until you opened the box, and then the probability collapsed into certainty, and the cat was either alive or dead. But the Many-Worlds theory says that at the moment a particle can or cannot emit, it does both, and each one sets off another fork in the universe, one with a dead cat and one with a live cat.”

“Well, you tell me,” Nordhausen shot back, “is Kelly alive or dead?”

“He seems to be in both states, before our very eyes. Schroedinger said there is a difference between an out of focus photograph and a snapshot of fog and clouds.” Dorland was pensive, “He proposed the original thought experiment to show that it was not possible to separate a superposition, it had to collapse… But in 1996, the National Institute of Standards and Technology managed to separate a single ion of beryllium into two states at a measurable distance of 80 nanometers.”

“More physics? What is that supposed to mean?”

Dorland rolled his eyes miserably. “I have no idea. Still, it seems to me that as long as we have Kelly physically here, and we make certain that there is a data set easily available for Graves’ colleagues to rescue him, then Kelly ought to maintain his integrity in this Meridian.”

Nordhausen was eager to agree. Then his thinking transitioned to the other problem that had been vexing him all night. “What about the hieroglyphics?”

“The hieroglyphics?”

“The hieroglyphics! The Rosetta Stone. And the other time travelers. If I didn’t cause the damage then they must have been running a mission themselves. That’s what triggered the alert—not my time jaunt.”

“Possibly.” Dorland was content to swim in uncertainty for a moment. “We’ll get over to the lab and see what the Golems have for us.”

Nordhausen pulled out his phone. “I’m calling Maeve to see how Kelly is. Maybe even our resolve to do this is enough to help him—even before it happens.”

“Good point,” Paul agreed, realizing that they were about to look into another box with the call. His heart was heavy when he thought of Kelly again.

Robert got through on the first ring, and gave a brief account of what they were planning. Kelly appeared to be no better, although he seemed to be resting comfortably.

Dorland whispered, “Tell her to meet us at your apartment in Berkeley. We can confer there. And use the code.”

The professor tried to remember. “Oh, yes,” he said. “And say hello to Alexandria.” It was a reference to a novel he had been writing on the destruction of the famous library in that city—and a fitting metaphor for his holding in Berkeley, as they had all agreed.

He switched off the phone with a visible sigh. “I don’t think she took that code business too well.”

~

This arrangement made, the men drove to the facility at Lawrence Berkeley Labs with as much speed as Paul could safely manage. They pulled into the rain swept parking lot a half hour later and rushed through the security station to the Lab. By the time they pushed through the door, they were breathless with the energy and excitement of their mission.

“You work the DVD thing,” Paul yelled. “I’ll check on the Golems.”

“Where do I start?” Nordhausen gave him a blank look.

“The blue system at the far left of the main control room. You know the one?”

“Yes, but what do I do?”

“Just do a search for any .MPEG file. You’ll find it. Make copies and publish. Use your imagination!” He rushed away, heading for the RAM bank center where he hoped the Golems would have news for him.

Robert located the data file on the archival storage system, and spent the next couple hours copying it on every available type of media he could locate. He set up a web and domain called KellyRamer.com, and posted the file in every possible format. It was linked into every University page he could access, and he added in meta-tags for easy searching.

When he was done, Nordhausen gave a sigh of exhaustion, and went to look for Paul.

“I made fifty copies,” he said. “Have we changed the future?”

“I hope so,” said Dorland. “The physical copies are tangible. The probabilities collapse into certainty with each copy you make because the chance of at least one surviving increases, copy by copy.”

“So, if we go back now and dig up the grave, will the DVD be in it again?”

“I’m not going to go find out,” Dorland said. “As the pious peasant said, ‘There are some things man is not meant to know, Doktor Frankenstein!’”

“Fronkensteen!” retorted Nordhausen, and the men laughed, breaking the mood of heaviness that had beset them while they labored to preserve Kelly in the world of certainty.

Dorland pulled himself out of his seat. “I was right about the contamination,” he said as he eyed a ream of computer printouts.

“What do you mean?”

“The alarm was not for your time breach, Robert. In fact, your party with Wilde and company seems to have made little impression on future Meridians. There’s a few inconsistencies in the RAM bank comparison, but nothing serious. The Meridian is clean on that score.”

“Then what caused the damage?”

“There was another breach of the continuum, concurrent with your mission, but to another target date altogether. No time to talk about it now though. First things first. You’ve got to face Maeve.”

The look Nordhausen gave him was the sum of all fears, but Paul just smiled.

~

The drive to the apartment from the lab was quite different from the trip they had made earlier in the afternoon. Now they were exhausted, hungry, and still filthy from the graveyard. They had both changed from their soaked shirts into fresh lab coats, but their trousers and shoes were still caked with dried mud. Dorland swung by an all night drive through, and they ordered combo meals to go.

When they got to the apartment, Maeve was already there, waiting in Paul’s car across the street. She seemed very excited, and encouraged by a strong improvement in Kelly’s condition.

“I don’t know what you two did,” she beamed, “but Kelly is awake now and hungry as a horse! He’s lucid, very focused, and the confusion and disorientation is completely gone.”

“Thank Robert,” said Paul, pointing at the professor. He told Maeve their idea of publishing the data to the Internet as a way of preserving it.

“Wasn’t that a security risk?” Maeve suggested.

“Not really,” said Paul. “To any outsider it’s just a few minutes of footage of Kelly at his desk. Sure, he vanishes at the end, but with special effects being what they are these days, and the amount of junk on the Internet—”

“Of course!” Maeve smiled warmly, delighted with the solution. “Well it’s already worked some kind of magic. I insisted Kelly stay at the hospital tonight for observation, just to be sure. In fact, I practically had to sit on him to keep him from running over to the lab.”

“Probably best, but this is great news,” said Robert, clearly relieved.

After they went up, Robert offered Paul the first shower, and set him up a with aclean tee shirt, a UC Berkeley sweat shirt, and a pair of very loose trousers.

While Dorland was showering, Lindford made a pot of coffee and Nordhausen took the opportunity of eating his hamburger, to avoid talking with her. She could see that he was at the end of his strength, and that finally sitting down was making the weariness come on, so she was content to wait for a while before they started getting into the matter seriously.

Dorland came out in a billow of steam, drying his hair with a towel, complaining that the balding Nordhausen should at least have a hairdryer for the benefit of his guests.

Nordhausen said he didn’t have enough visitors to justify the expenditure, and closed the bathroom door behind himself.

Dorland, finally warm and dry, sank into the large easy chair to the side of Nordhausen’s desk. The black and white composition books containing the professors hieroglyphics were scattered on the desk top with computer printouts from the Golem report.

Maeve brought Paul a cup of coffee, and sat in the desk chair. She piled up the notebooks and set them aside without looking at them.

“Okay, Paul, tell me everything.” Tired or not, he was the project team leader, and he would have to answer for anything that went wrong.

“Hah, yes, everything,” Dorland began. “Well, I think we have taken care of Kelly’s problem. Your instincts were right that the DVD in the memorial was not safe, but Robert and I have taken care of that. Oh, by the way,” he handed her a handful of DVD’s in a box. “Take these, and put them somewhere, burn a copy on every computer you have, and keep transferring them when you get new ones.”

She slipped them into her shoulder bag. “So, tell me what you found at the graveyard.”

Paul spoke reluctantly, “The grave had been dug up, and the work looked relatively recent.”

“Dug up? By whom?” Maeve was shocked.

“We have no idea, but the odds are that it was an operative from the future. They dug down, smashed the lid on the box, removed the stuff we put in, and buried it again. It was obvious when we got there, they made no effort to hide it.”

“Who would do this? And why?” Maeve was bewildered.

“As to why, no doubt to eliminate Kelly. As to whom? I suppose we can discuss that.”

“The time travelers who saved Kelly—”

“—wouldn’t have any reason to want to eliminate him. If that were so, then why would they save him in the first place?”

“So that means…”

“Robert believes there are other people moving through time, and if you looked at those reports you would have seen that the alarm keyed on a breach at three past four, this afternoon.”

That set the two of them to silence for a moment. They heard the shower door slam, and listened to Robert moving about in the bathroom. Shortly, he emerged, also in clean, dry clothes, and seemingly re-energized.

“Dare I ask what you two have been talking about?”

Paul and Maeve gazed back at him wearily.

“Paul tells me that you think other people are moving through time.”

Robert looked at Paul. “You told her?”

“Not everything.”

Maeve was instantly alert. “What?”

Robert looked pleadingly at his friend. “You tell her.”

Paul pointed to the professor’s notebooks.

“Open that notebook, Maeve—no, not the Golem files, the older notebook to the left.”

Questioningly, she complied. The rows of precise, intricate hieroglyphics marched across the pages. “What is this?”

“What does it look like to you?” Paul asked.

“It looks like Egyptian writing.” She looked up blankly. “Who wrote this?”

Paul looked at the professor. “Robert did. We didn’t know if it would still manifest in this Meridian, but it seems we learn something new about the theory every time it is tested. Apparently the lifeline of a Prime is held inviolate if he is safe in a Nexus during Transformation. I was worried about Paradox, but Robert is safe and sound—at least for the moment.”

Maeve took in the jargon, understanding, yet clearly still annoyed. “Robert wrote this? Why on earth…” If she had been confused before, she was now totally at a loss.

Nordhausen stood in silence. Maeve continued to turn, page after page after page, uncomprehending.

“Robert says he can read those.”

At that she looked up sharply. “What’s going on here?”

“Robert went through the Arch,” Paul continued quickly.

“What?”

“Robert went through the Arch, and when he came back, he told me something had changed. Oh, he was afraid all this was his fault, and I let him stew for awhile, but the Golems are on to the real culprits, and it has something to do with that writing.” Paul pointed at the professor’s notebooks.

“Okay, stop right there.” Lindford commanded. “This is too much at once.” She paused, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Okay, one more time. Robert went through the Arch?” She flashed him a dark look, and Nordhausen swallowed hard. “You’re talking about his trip to recover Lawrence’s manuscript at Reading station, yes?”

“No. I’m talking about his trip to see H.M.S Pinafore in London—1880.”

Dorland was through helping. He had let the cat out of Schroedinger’s box and he decided to leave the rest to the professor. Nordhausen said, “Yes… I… Well, I went through the Arch, and when I came back something was different, and if I hadn’t gone we wouldn’t even know about it, so I did a good thing after all, and now we have to figure out what to do about it.” He ran out of steam, giving her a deflated look.

Maeve left him hanging for a few beats.

“Notwithstanding the fact that I only agreed to let you two start up the project again on your express promise that you would never send a person through it again without my approval,” she began, “you nevertheless secretly, and in violation of your promise to me, sent Robert through the Arch? Robert, of all people? And he did something to change history?”

“Now wait a second,” Dorland protested. “I didn’t send Robert through, this was all his own secret little plan.”

“I’m afraid that’s correct, Maeve. It was just me,” Nordhausen seconded. “Paul knew nothing about it until I told him this afternoon. He got to me just as I was returning.”

“Well suppose you just tell me now!” She was reddening with anger, secretly believing that the whole of Kelly’s dilemma was to be laid at Nordhausen’s feet.

Robert related his experience in London once more. This time he minimized his encounter with Wilde and Gilbert, and focused on the British Museum. With some contributions from Dorland, the story was worked out again, and with more details, which Maeve pried out in pointed inquisition.

Finally they were back again with Maeve and Paul paging through Robert’s hieroglyphic diaries. Maeve had vented her anger at them, but the more she came to realize that Robert’s unauthorized time jaunt had been a lucky windfall for them all, the more she composed herself.

Paul summed it up. “So if Robert hadn’t followed up his lead on Rasil’s scroll and the hieroglyphics, then we would have never stumbled on the damaged stone—the Rosetta Stone, as he claims it was called. Here, have a look at the data we pulled from the on-line RAM Bank reference. The Golems confirm Robert’s story. The stone was supposed to look like this.” He pointed to the photo on the readout they had obtained earlier. “That’s the heart of it.”

“The Rosetta Stone!” Robert exulted.

“Their touchstone,” said Paul. He pointed at the Golem files lying scattered all over Nordhausen’s study table. “He’s on to something, Maeve. The alert we got keyed on another breach in the continuum.

The professor’s eyebrows raised, wrinkling his forehead with surprise. “When? Does the report have any good data on the time?”

Paul smiled at him, the light of discovery in his eyes. “You’re going to love this,” he waded in, then jumped. “The temporal date is 1799 and the spatial locus of the breaching point is in the Middle East.”

“The Middle East?”

“In Egypt… At a place called Rosetta…”

Part IV

Time & Place

“It’s a bad plan that can’t be changed.”

—Puplilius Syrus: Maxims

10

The Golem alert subsided at exactly 2100 hours GMT, and the systems at Lawrence Berkeley Labs returned to a low standby mode. Paul got the system status call on his cell phone, and he telephoned the lab to leave a few instructions with the student interns supervising consoles there. As exhausted as they all were that night, the project team members each seemed to have something that pulled them along. Maeve took some time to settle into the meaning of all that had happened, her mind constantly diverted from the conversation with thoughts of Kelly. She decided to drive back to University Hospital and check on Kelly one more time before she turned in. They all agreed to meet at the lab at ten the following morning, where they would decide what to do about everything that had happened.

“Read every word,” she said, pointing at the scattered pages of the Golem report. “If we have to make an intervention I want temporal and spatial targeting points in the morning—and a damn good reason for any action we take. Now we don’t have Kelly, so for heaven’s sake use a computer for the math. Clear?”

Robert and Paul poured over the Golem report, for an hour, searching the data for variance flags and discussing anything that sounded serious. Amazingly, the Meridian was holding good integrity, and they had nothing above a .0013 variance report to bother with.

“These numbers are cleaner than the probabilities we ran for the Shakespeare mission,” said Paul. “It doesn’t seem like your Rosetta Stone was all that important.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” the professor warned. “Sure, I’ve looked at dates from 1799 to the present and found little to get upset about. Did you read the bit on Champollion?”

“I’m just getting to that.”

“Don’t bother. He leads a humdrum life, publishes a few more compilations of his findings on Egyptian artifacts, and dies three weeks early.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “That’s odd.”

“Yes. It seems that even if you make a great discovery it only ends up extending your expected life span by three weeks. So much for the bounty of fame.”

“Then why all the fuss and bother over the hieroglyphics? How do we justify opening the continuum again with variance data this weak? You heard Maeve when she left. It’s going to be like pulling teeth at the lab with her tomorrow. She still thinks our tampering could bring Kelly down again, and that isn’t something we can dispel with good numbers.”

“She’ll just have to get over it,” Robert insisted. Besides, she’ll want us to fix this because she just can’t bear to have things amiss. It was the only reason she agreed to allow the project to continue—to keep a watch on the history and defend the integrity of the Meridian we knew.”

“True, but suppose you start by convincing me—just in case we meet resistance because of the Kelly thing. Here, I’ll play devil’s advocate.” Paul folded his arms. “Why do we need to investigate this Rosetta Stone thing? You’re off the hook, Robert. We’ve already determined that your trip did nothing to cause the damage. Why push this?”

Nordhausen gave him a long look. He started to say something, then caught himself and reached for a pen and paper instead. Paul craned his neck to see what he was writing, but the professor waved him away until he was finished. He slid the paper across the table to Paul, a smug look on his face. “Remember that?” he challenged.

The page was covered with a few neatly drawn lines of the ancient Egyptian writing. “Cute,” said Paul.

“More than that, my friend. Those are the very same characters on that scroll I found in Rasil’s backpack.”

“How could you remember something like that?”

“How could I remember? What street do you live on, Paul?” The professor wore a miffed expression.

“Alright,” Paul conceded. “So you remembered what you saw. I’ll grant you that. But what’s the big deal?”

Nordhausen frowned. He leaned heavily on the table and pointed to each character in turn as he spoke. “Here follows the word of the Lord of Time… That’s this fellow here,” he said, pointing at a larger character he had drawn. “At the time of great struggle… Eternity lies in the shadow of the Wolf… The Wolf shall go forward and prey upon the bounty of the lord… Yet if he be slain for his misdeed… For his sin,” he corrected himself. “Then all will be overthrown. Therefore—That’s this line here, Paul, and now it reads: When the Old Man returns, the Lord’s Army shall come to the Gate of the West. The Temple Priest of Time proceeds with two eyes to the Lord of Eternity. That’s the literal translation, but I would paraphrase the bit about the eyes to mean ‘look’ or perhaps ‘meet.’ Let’s read it this way: The Priest of Time shall go forth and meet the Lord of Eternity.”

“The two eyes,” Paul nodded, suddenly absorbed in the translation Nordhausen was making. “You really can read these things.”

“I’ve been saying that all along. In fact, I may be the only person on earth in this milieu who can read them.”

“So you’ll live three weeks longer,” Paul teased.

“Well, are you telling me you aren’t curious about the references to time and eternity in those symbols?”

“Of course I am, but what does it all mean?”

“What does it mean? Think, man! You were the one sitting in Castle Massiaf. The Wolf was the nickname the Arabs gave to Reginald of Kerak. They called him Arnot—the Wolf, and his behavior made the handle quite appropriate. He raided the sultan’s caravan, capturing Saladin’s niece in the process. The sultan was so enraged that he invaded the Christian lands, which led to the great battle at the Horns of Hattin. Remember?”

Paul’s eyes had a distant look in them as he recalled the breathtaking sight of the host of Teki Ad Din riding down from the north. The sound of the horses hooves still beat in his mind, and he could see the sinuous line of the rider’s torches as they made their way through the valley. “Right…” He was piecing the message together with the history in his mind now, following the professor at last. “Reginald was a Primary Lever on that event. If he hadn’t looted that caravan—”

“Exactly!”

Nordhausen hurried along. “Now remember this bit here… ‘Yet if he be slain for his sin, then all will be overthrown.’ That sure sounds like a warning to the operatives in that castle to keep their bloody hands off Reginald.”

“Are you suggesting—”

“Of course I am! They’re using the hieroglyphics as a code. Maeve suggested it herself in the debriefing sessions, and I’m convinced of it now. Then I go off to look for some primary source material and when I get back none of you have even heard about the hieroglyphics. But I was in the Nexus this time. I know. I can read them, damnit, so the rest of you will just have to believe me on this.”

“Calm down, Robert. Nobody is questioning your take on this.”

“That’s encouraging. Then you can see why they wanted the stone damaged, right?”

Paul paused rolling his eyes, a look of recognition on his face. “It sure is a good way to preserve the secrecy of these message scrolls.”

“Yes! Rasil was carrying that scroll as a message. Didn’t you say this Kadi figure questioned you about it? You said they called you a Gray Walker on the eternal Hajj. How’s that for a nifty metaphor for a Time Traveler?”

“Yes! In fact they called me the Walker come from the Valley of the Moon.”

“That’s what the Arabs call Wadi Rumm.” Robert fanned the flames of Paul’s thinking, trying to build heat for his argument. “They expected Rasil, and they were supposed to get this message. The Wolf shall go forward and prey upon the bounty of the lord… Yet if he be slain for his sin, then all will be overthrown. It was a warning for them—a set of instructions, if you will. These guys were Assassins. It was warning them not to exact revenge upon Reginald!” The whites of his eyes added emphasis to his conclusion. “Therefore,” he pointed at his drawing again, “When the Old Man returns, the Lord’s Army shall come to the Gate of the West.”

“The Old man was Sinan,” said Paul. “The Gate of the West was the Horns of Hattin.”

“Precisely. Maeve and Kelly will both agree on that. They found it in the variance reports they ran during your inadvertent mission. So we have a warning, and consequence if that warning instruction is followed. It was an outcome favorable to the Arabs. The whole Christian army was slaughtered at Hattin and ninety years of Western occupation was ended in the holy lands. Rasil was carrying a message intended to make sure that happened.”

“It certainly seems that way,” Paul agreed.

“Why, there’s no question about it! Now then—” The professor clapped his hands, rubbing his palms together with anticipation. “The writer of that scroll would have to be from the future to be aware of the importance of Reginald in this matter.”

“Yes,” said Paul. “The scroll identified a Primary Lever and warned against contamination. It clearly predicted the outcome if the instruction was followed. But what’s that last bit you translated?”

Nordhausen looked at his drawing again. “Ah, yes. It reads: The Priest of Time shall go forth and see the Lord of Eternity. It could also read ‘to meet the Lord of Eternity. The Temple Priest was equated with the Old Man in this symbol.” He fingered his diagram. “The Lord of Eternity… Hummm, I wonder who that was?”

Paul took a deep breath. “Me,” he said glumly.

“Oh?” Nordhausen was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, eager to have his support for his interpretation.

“Sinan was on his way to the castle—probably to intervene in the quarrel between the Sami and the Kadi. That was why Jabr ali Sad smuggled me out of the castle and hid me away in the library. But he was also going to eyeball me, I’m sure of it. Word certainly reached him of my unaccountable arrival. He was coming to take a look for himself.”

“Sinan is from the future, Paul.” The professor’s voice was hushed with the implication of his statement. “He’s like a permanent CIA agent assigned to a given Milieu—and look what he does in the history: he sets himself up in these secret mountain strongholds to recruit and train Assassins to carry out operations aimed at influencing events.”

“It sure looks that way. The Assassin cults survived for over 200 years, until the Mongols finally stomped them out for good.”

“Who knows if they really succeeded?” Robert had the bit between his teeth now. “Good lord! I’ve almost forgotten it, but Rasil said something—more to himself than to me. He blew up the entrance to the Well of Souls, as he called it, and said something like: ‘It will never again deliver the souls of the faithful to our agents in Massiaf.’ Yes! Then he said: ‘I wonder how Sinan will fare without the scrolls to guide him now?”

They looked at each other, and the conclusion was plain on both their faces.

“Sinan is an agent,” Paul agreed. “From the future.”

“And Rasil was sending instructions from Egypt. That threw me at first, but the more I thought about that scroll the more I was convinced that it was a rubbing.”

“A rubbing?”

“Yes, you hold the papyrus up to carved stone characters and the pressure of your rubbing imprints the images, like modern printing, only without the ink. It was a rubbing, Paul, and that meant the original message was carved somewhere, carved in stone. That’s why I wanted to look through the collection in the British Museum. I couldn’t find any reference to these characters in the existing data. If Rasil’s scroll was a rubbing then—”

“The touchstone had to be somewhere…” Paul reached the obvious conclusion. “Good for you, Robert. You’ve convinced me. Rasil opened his big mouth and now someone has run a mission—at least according to this Golem report—to the year 1799; to Egypt, to Rosetta.”

“They broke it,” Nordhausen nodded. “They’re trying to preserve the integrity of their code.”

“Interesting,” said Paul, his tone hinting that he had some clear conclusion in mind. “Why would they be using stone carvings to keep a record of the history? Because that’s the real touchstone. It has to be. It’s not the Rosetta Stone, but this hidden record of the history.”

“Are you suggesting they have some kind of archive or something?”

“Well, Kelly came to the conclusion that we needed a reference point on the history that was stable if we were to have any success guarding the Meridian. Otherwise how would we know if something changed? That’s what this Golem report is all about. But it seems to me that our Arab adversaries, if indeed they are Islamic radicals like the Assassins, are using a low tech approach to this whole process. They’ve got these Oklo reaction chambers rigged up to provide enough power to open the continuum at selected points. They’ve established these one way gates, a natural Arch opening a breach to a selected time. They’ve got little reception committees set up for the Walkers, as they call them, and they’ve got agents and supervisors and God only knows what else! I only saw a few rooms of that castle.”

Nordhausen gave him a grave nod of assent. “And while I was watching H.M.S Pinafore at the opera house someone from their side ran a mission—to wipe out the primary key to their record of the history. They’re using the Egyptian writing as a code, damn it. And if we go back tomorrow we can see about stopping them!”

“To Rosetta?”

“Where else? We have to see if the stone was broken upon discovery. If it’s whole, we have half a chance at fixing this thing. But what if it’s broken when they dig it up? That would mean the damage could have been done at any prior point in the history. We’d never find that needle in the haystack.”

“That would be hard to pull off,” said Paul. “No one knows when the stone was placed there. If they weren’t careful they might do something that would affect the discovery in 1799.”

“Ah,” Nordhausen countered. “But they know where it is—where it was discovered. They could go back a year earlier, dig it up, damage it, and then bury it again. And they know exactly what that stone said—in fact, I know what it said. I still remember it.”

“Tell me.” Paul was suddenly curious.

“Well nothing really mysterious or important. It was really just a sign, a proclamation by Ptolemy V Epiphanes laying out all his good deeds in regards to the temples and priests to buy their reciprocal good will and cement his legacy. The last line even states a possible point of origin for the stone. It read: ‘This decree shall be inscribed on a stela of hard stone in sacred, native and Greek characters and set up in each of the first, second and third rank temples beside the image of the ever-living king.” He gave Paul a satisfied look, pleased with his recollection of the history and taken with the notion that he was the only one alive now that knew this.

“So they had clues enough to look for it deeper in the past as well,” he concluded.

“Possibly, but that’s a much more difficult operation,” said Paul. “You just said that they were going to carve this message in each of three temple sites. They would have to get just the right one—the exact stone that eventually wound up in Rosetta, wouldn’t they? Otherwise they’d have to damage all three to be sure none of them was ever found intact. There’s just too much variation and haze in that direction. I like the idea of damaging it after it was dug up in 1799, or perhaps just a year before as you suggested—something very close to the discovery date. That has much more clarity—much more likelihood of success.”

“Well, there’s one way to find out,” said the professor with a gleam in his eye. “Now all we have to do is convince Kelly and Maeve.”

11

The next morning the four team members met at the Lab as planned. This time Paul was the last to arrive, still yawning when he came through the door and found the others milling about the main control consoles, already deep in a discussion over temporal coordinates. Nordhausen was standing with an armful of books, volumes dragged from his well stocked library. He was pushing one on Maeve, trying to gesture with a free hand while she flipped through the pages. Kelly was seated at the console, and Paul gave him a hearty ‘welcome back.’

“We didn’t think we’d have you here,” he said. “This is great! Now I don’t have to run the numbers.“

“There you are, Paul.” Nordhausen was on him at once. “I realize these volumes have been altered slightly by that last time mission, but they’ll give us a good starting point on the history, and we can look up details in Kelly’s RAM bank to verify things.”

Paul glanced at Maeve, obviously checking her reaction to all this.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “He’s been arguing his point for an hour now and—”

“—She’s agreed to approve the mission,” the professor put in excitedly.

“She’s agreed that 1799 is the key target date,” Maeve corrected him quickly.

“Right—well we aren’t throwing darts, Maeve.” The professor pressed on. “It’s the date we need for the mission. Kelly’s already working up the preliminary numbers.”

“Right,” said Kelly, bent over his laptop. “But I’ll need time on an Arion to solidify all this.”

Paul gave Kelly a curious look. “You sure you’re OK, buddy?”

“Me? I’m fine. A complete recovery. Whatever you guys did it was pure genius. I think you’ve protected my integrity in this Meridian for good, but I’ll tell you, the thought that someone was digging up my grave…”

“I had the same feeling,” said Paul. “In fact… This may be my imagination, but I think I was being followed on my way over to the lab this morning.”

“Followed?” Maeve did not like the sound of that.

“Well, I may just be paranoid but I stopped for a Bagel and coffee at Peet’s, and there was this guy in a car parked across the street. He was just sitting there, smoking a cigarette, but when I came out he started his engine and I swear he was behind me all the way until I hit Cyclotron Road and the outer security shack.”

“Spooky,” said Nordhausen.

“It’s got me thinking about security issues now,” said Paul. “We’re going to have to be more careful than ever.”

“You think they may have spies right here in Berkeley—a permanent operation running here to keep an eye on us?” Kelly looked up from his laptop, clearly unhappy, as he had been the first target. “You think they may try a hit or something—on the facilities here?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul, “but consider this: Suppose that guy was an operative from the future. He could have been verifying something as simple as my arrival time for this meeting. You said it yourself, Maeve. Most of all the history is unknown to us. It’s made up of all the little nothings of the hour that surround the big moments—but that’s where the key Pushpoints are. Hell, Graves came back the night of our first planned mission intent on saving Kelly’s life. All he had to do was step in front of him near an off ramp and delay him for a few brief seconds. You can’t run an operation like that without knowing a lot of precise details.”

“Well, how would they know about this meeting?” Maeve asked. “We aren’t keeping minutes anymore, and nothing is hard scheduled.”

“How could they know? Just by watching the four of us arrive here, that’s how. That takes reconnaissance, surveillance, a lot of sleuth work. You follow me?”

“Right,” said Nordhausen. “Hell, they ran an operation last night to strike at Kelly. I suppose it makes sense that they might have someone posted here to do the equivalent of a damage assessment. You know,” he looked at Maeve now, “to see what the consequences of their mission were. They ripped off Kelly’s DVD and thought that would be the end of it, but the Nexus must have still been in force for a time, because Paul and I were here, and the Arch was spinning at near 100% after my mission.”

Paul smiled. “You’re getting the hang of this at last,” he said. “That’s just another positive outcome from your illegal mission. Yes, we were in the sphere of influence of the Arch, and that made us Free Radicals. We got Maeve’s call about Kelly while we were still in the Nexus, and we resolved to go to Kelly’s aid then and there. That resolve was enough to put the issue in doubt. Time was not ready to close the continuum, so she put Kelly into a Schroedinger’s Box and we made sure that cat stayed alive!”

“So now they realize their plot against Kelly failed,” Maeve breathed. “They know we are on to them, and if what you said is true they are looking for verification on the events surrounding this meeting.”

“Exactly,” Paul agreed. “They want clarity. It’s the only way they can plan any counter-operation against the action we decide to take here.”

“But they can’t have spies everywhere,” said Kelly. There’s no one here now but the four of us, for example, and this is where the real decisions will be made.”

“True, but you would be amazed what a good historian can dig up,” said Nordhausen.

“A lot of trouble!” Maeve harried him, and the professor waved her off.

“The point is well taken,” said Paul. “We leave subtle clues on the world, almost without a second thought. The phone calls we made last night make an easy example. There’s a record of them somewhere now, with exact times. The queries we run on the Internet can be data based.”

“Not!” Kelly protested. “I’ve got our systems locked up tighter than a witch’s—” He caught himself, realizing he was not just out with the boys. “Well you know what I mean.”

“OK, so our systems here are secure,” Paul continued. “Yet every time we spin up the Arch, Con-Edison knows about it, right? Our damn electric bill could stand as a record of our operation times. Last night we all signed in at the hospital registration desk to go visit you, Kelly. And Robert—didn’t I see you swipe a credit card for the meals we picked up on the way over to your place?”

“Well all I had with me were British pounds and shillings left over from my mission,“ said the professor.

“Fine, but there’s a record of that transaction—timed and dated. We drive, we buy gas, groceries, we go through intersections that have been rigged with cameras for years now. We pass through RFID chip readers every time we go into a store. Beyond that, we scribble notes and just toss them into trash cans like they were gone. Hell, we leave fingerprints on everything we touch. A good gumshoe and a forensics team could learn an incredible amount of detail about our lives if they set their mind to it. Look how we solved the spatial and temporal coordinates for the mission to the Hejaz? It was just an errant note scribbled on a receipt. And speaking of Mr. Graves: when he showed up seven years ahead of schedule what did he do? He holed up in a monastery to leave as little impression on the Meridian as possible. The almost invisible wakes we leave while going about ordinary activities could be the crucial elements of a breaching plan.” He halted, out of breath, but it was clear by the look on their faces that he had made his point.

“He’s right,” Maeve concurred. “If we’re going to take on a responsibility like this we have to start being very careful—very precise.” She looked at Nordhausen.

“And get the numbers right,” Robert whispered in Kelly’s direction.

“Oh, be quiet, or I’ll send you back to the dinosaurs again!” Kelly smiled, but his point was made.

“That opens another issue,” said Maeve. “Robert thinks he has the temporal and spatial coordinates figured out for this trip to Rosetta, but who’s going?”

There was a moment of silence and Nordhausen was the first to speak. “I’m the obvious choice,” he said. “I know the history and I can read the hieroglyphics.”

“And you have a strange propensity to wander about and tip brandy with Primes,” Paul put in.

“What?” Maeve was on alert at once.

“Never mind,” Nordhausen hushed her, covering his tracks. “He’s just needling me, and I suppose I have it coming. I can promise you that the events of recent days have made a profound impression on me. I realize what we’re dealing with now, Maeve. I’ll be very careful—very precise in anything I do.”

“Of course you will,” she said. “Because I’m going too.”

Nordhausen’s eyes widened. “What? Who’s going to run the monitors?”

“I suppose that gets dumped on me again,” Kelly complained.

Robert looked at Maeve and said, “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Of course I do.”

“But we aren’t just going to sit in a gallery and watch a play. This is going to be dangerous.”

“Of course it is.”

“But you’re a—”

“A woman? Yes, you’ve got that right as well. And don’t try to tell me that there was no place for a woman in this Milieu, because I know the history as well as you do.”

Nordhausen gave Paul a frustrated look. “Do we really need three people on this operation?”

“Three people? Hey, who’s gonna stay and help me here?” said Kelly.

Everyone was looking at Paul, who stood with his arms folded, his brown eyes shifting from Robert to Maeve to Kelly as he sorted something in his mind. “OK,” he said at last. “Let me hear the approach scenario.” He wanted to catch up on anything he may have missed by coming late.

“Savants,” said Robert. “We’re going in as members of the philosophers, scientists and literati that tagged along with Napoleon during his invasion of Egypt.”

“Won’t the names of all the passengers who booked transport with the French fleet be in a register?” Paul probed. “Won’t they have assigned quarters, liaisons with the French Army? How will you pass?”

“There were many that landed later, coming over on courier ships and independent transport.” Maeve explained her rationale. “I’ve done some research on this, and it solves our language problem. We can say we were Americans visiting relatives in France when we heard the proclamation announcing the expedition and simply had to return home by way of Egypt.”

“Americans? Details,” said Paul. “You’ve got to ring true.”

Maeve reached into the pocket of her khaki shirt and drew out a paper. “The Perla,” she said with a smile. “A Spanish 34-gun frigate out of Malaga making a courier and supply run to Cyprus for a plantation owner there. She put into Mallorca, then ran up to Toulon, where they took on six more passengers, including three Americans. They went on to Sardinia, and then Tripoli, where one of the Americans got off. The ship hit foul water during a squall in the Gulf of Sidra and three passengers were lost, including the last two Americans—swept right out to sea and never heard from again. The Perla continued on and docked at Aboukir Bay three days before our planned entry date. She was there very briefly, before fleeing at rumors of the imminent approach of the British and Turkish fleets. She made her delivery but, nearing home on her return leg, she was caught in an engagement with a British squadron in the straits of Gibraltar and fled to the Barbary Coast, where she sunk. We can pose as those two lost souls, and just say we got off at Aboukir Bay. The ship will be gone. There would be no one to dispute our story. Who will be the wiser?”

She had a pleased expression on her face, and was glad she had taken the time to do the initial research the previous night, after leaving Kelly at the hospital. The others were all somewhat surprised to hear this.

“I stopped at the University wardrobe on the way in,” she pressed on.

“So that’s what you dragged in with that duffel bag!” Nordhausen wagged a finger at her. “You were planning this all along. You just wanted to hear our arguments.”

“No, I was planning it all last night, and I was just trying to make up my mind whether to let you go or not, Robert.”

“What?” Nordhausen started to warm up for another argument but he held himself in check, looking at Paul to referee. “Well, say something, Paul!”

“Alright,” Paul obliged him. “You want the mission, you’ve got it, Maeve. You’ve obviously been thinking about this, and the only experience you’ve had in the Arch was the Spook Job that fixed my position in the library so Kelly could bring me home. I owe you one. It’s all yours. I’ll stay here and ride shotgun with Kelly on the consoles.”

“But—” Nordhausen had a pleading look on his face.

“She’s in,” Paul said firmly. “So get used to it, Robert.”

“You mean to say you’d give up on an opportunity to see Napoleon?” The professor knew that Paul had always admired the little French dictator.

“See Napoleon?” Maeve jumped on that notion at once. “Not on my watch.”

Nordhausen sighed heavily. “She won’t let me do anything!”

“Of course I won’t.”

Paul and Kelly just smiled.

~

They were some time working out the details of their planned entry to 1799. Nordhausen nailed down the situation they were likely to find, and dreamt up a reason for their need to observe the activities at Rosetta.

“The history is not very detailed,” he complained, “but we know that a French officer in the Corps of Engineers, one Bouchard or Boussard, was responsible for the find, in August 1799. They were improving fortifications against an expected invasion from the sea by the Turks, at a place called Fort Julien, Rosetta.”

“August?” Maeve questioned. “I’ve got a better reference than that. The RAM bank has two references that show the stone was discovered by a Captain Pierre Bouchard on July 15, 1799. It was unearthed during a demolition of a wall at the fort you mentioned.”

“That’s odd,” said Nordhausen. “All my references indicate August. And none of them have that level of detail.”

“Captain Pierre François Xavier Bouchard, to be more precise.” Maeve smiled.

“Very well,” said Nordhausen. “What else did you find?”

“Well, the stone was sent to the Savants in Cairo, so it probably arrived there in August. This other article says that it was received there by Jean-Joseph Marcel and Remi Raige, and they identified the middle script as Demotic. An article publicizing the incident was published in the Courrier de l’Egypte in September of 1799.”

“You’ve done your research,” said Nordhausen.

“Details,” Maeve winked. “I’m betting July 15 is good data. If you go with August there simply isn’t enough time to get it to Cairo, study it, and put out an article by September. Besides, when in doubt we have to begin at the earliest possible target date. In fact, I’ll wager that the trip from Rosetta to Cairo would have been the ideal time to damage the stone—assuming it is unearthed with the hieroglyphics intact as you are obviously hoping.”

“Hummm… Then we’ll have to arrive July 15—perhaps even a day earlier.”

“Guys—” Kelly gave them a frustrated look. “Make up your mind. I’ve got the prelims in for August and now I need to shift everything two or three weeks.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Nordhausen. “Go with July 14, 1799. We’ll linger in the vicinity of the fortification and see what we can learn—that is if you can at least get us to within a few million years of the target this time.”

“Very funny.” Maeve was quick to defend Kelly. “Remember, he got you back, and Paul as well—and that was no small feat.”

“I was only kidding. OK, we’ve got our breaching point. Now what about language? Your take on us being Americans is a great way to cover for our English without being taken for the enemy. I can manage a little French, but not enough to converse fluently.”

“I’m good for some French as well… and of course, German,” said Maeve.

“Not very useful in this instance, I’m afraid.”

“Then we’ll just have to keep our conversation to a minimum, won’t we? The less you say the better, if you want my opinion.”

“And I don’t.”

“Then we’ll just have to rely on your French, if we must. Kelly, how long before we have good numbers?”

“Give me a few minutes to program this change, and then I can send the file over a secure line to the Arion system for processing. I would guess it might take another couple of hours before we get a solution firmed up for the targeting vectors.”

“Good,” said Maeve. “That’s enough time for some more food, coffee, and costume inspection.”

The professor looked over his shoulder. “Inspection?”

“That’s right. No PDAs, cell phones, wrist watches, Parker Pens—you get my drift?”

Robert rolled his eyes and walked off.

12

The numbers came back just under two hours later, and they looked very good. The entry variance data showed a discrepancy factor of only 0.00017, and that was clean as far as Paul was concerned. He was satisfied that they would hit the target date, assuming all went well with the equipment.

Robert and Maeve were already decked out in costume. Maeve wore a blue silk corset undergarment with hand sewn stay pockets and an accent of lovely mustard colored thread about the buttonholes. A Tonder lace was added to the chemise and was matched with embroidered stockings with a similar pattern. The outer garment was a simple dress of striped Poplin with a quilted petticoat, more suitable for travel, and she selected skirts that would not need hoops, thinking more of comfort than fashion at this point. She had spent some time curling her auburn hair and topped it all off with a lovely hat.

“I could add a waistcoat,” she said as much to herself as anyone else. “Being July in Egypt I would imagine the temperatures will be somewhat fierce. The silk is fine in the undergarments, but I won’t be lacing my corset very tightly.”

Paul was taking the spectacle in as she paraded about the room. “What about a wig, hats, a parasol?”

“I’m afraid I just couldn’t bear up under a wig,” said Maeve. “A parasol is a good idea, and I managed to find something appropriate—see?” She opened a small blue parasol and spun it about, delighted with herself. “And I’ve a nice beaded purse to finish the whole thing off.”

“But won’t that linen be a bit warm?”

“Possibly. If I can’t take the heat I’ll just shed a layer or two. There wasn’t a hard distinction between outer and underwear at certain levels of society in the Eighteenth Century. We have decided to go as landed gentry, but not high society. A working woman might shed her outer layer, her gown or jacket, in certain circumstances, and work in her shift, stays and petticoat. I suppose it all depended on the public space she was in and by whom she expected to be seen. Under the circumstances I’ve chosen a rather plain waistcoat on the middle ground between outer and underwear. I can’t imagine exposing myself too much with the Moslem culture thing. I’ll be accompanying the good Professor Nordhausen as his sister—strictly middle class with this outfit.”

The professor wore a gentlemen’s suit of pale blue silk, with nicely brocaded cuffs and collar. Maeve found him comfortable boots, knee socks and a matching set of trousers that fit just right. He plopped on a white styled wig and was laughing at himself in the mirror when Paul saw him. A carved walking stick completed his accessories.

There were just a few more details to work out on the spatial placement before Paul would be satisfied and give a final go for the mission. Maeve went off to confer with Kelly, and Paul pulled Robert aside in the auxiliary room. “Where are you manifesting at the target milieu? What time of day will it be, and how can we minimize observation by locals?”

“We’ll be northwest of the town,” said Nordhausen, “on the road that runs along Aboukir Bay towards Alexandria. We’ll arrive in the pre-dawn hour, 5:00 AM, so observation should not be a problem.”

“You’re sure about those coordinates?”

“As sure as I can be under the circumstances. We won’t really know what’s there until we manifest… What’s wrong, Paul?”

“Well, it’s just that all the other breaching points were quite remote from populated areas. What if you were to appear right in front of some passer by, or a French soldier patrolling the road?”

“That sort of speculation is useless. How can we know?”

“Recon,” Paul asserted. “We can certify the breaching coordinates with a Spook Job—a quick ten second manifestation before we run the final operation. You appear, take a quick look, and we yank you back. If the coast is clear, as they say, we rev up for a full breach and insert the team.”

“Won’t Kelly need to adjust his numbers?”

“Nope. We’ll use the exact same data he has planned for the mission. All I have to do is get the Retraction Module to wink appropriately. Spinning out a singularity for ten seconds involves—” The look on Robert’s face made it plain that the professor did not want to know anything more about the physics.

“I’ll tell Maeve,” Paul concluded. “In the meantime, I suppose you two can get ready to go down to the Arch.” There was a perceptible change in his voice, and the professor noticed it at once.

Nordhausen gave him a long look. Paul met his gaze, a solemn expression on his face. “So I’ll miss this one,” he said.

“You’ll miss the French Army,” said Robert. “The Battle of the Pyramids, French Squares, thousands of Mameluke Cavalry making their furious charges under the angry glow of the hot desert sun….”

“That was all over in 1798,” said Paul. “In fact, Napoleon had already been checked at Acre and he was making his retreat back to Egypt in May of 1799. By June it was clear to him that the campaign in Egypt was a disaster. He was already planning his exit strategy.”

“Yes,” said Nordhausen. “Secret instructions involving the frigates La Murion and La Carrière, to be ready to make sail at a moment’s notice.”

“But there was the Turkish Army of Rhodes to worry about first,” Paul continued.

“I see you’ve been reading the history.”

Paul was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Robert, the Turkish anchored a fleet of sixty troop transports off Aboukir Bay on the night of July 11th. They were landing initial shore parties within hours. Just how far west on the road to Alexandria will you be?”

“Not far.” The professor’s voice tried to persuade that all would be well, but he knew what Paul was driving at now.

“The Turks had 15,000 troops ashore by the morning of the 12th of July. You’re going in just two days later.”

“The French garrison held out at Aboukir Castle until the 18th and by all accounts the Turks just sat on the beaches.”

“By all accounts…” Paul had a worried expression on his face. “Remember that 99% of everything that has ever happened is unknown to us. Why, 99% of your own lived experience is forgotten. Sure you have a recollection of the day you graduated college, but what did you do the previous afternoon? What did you have for breakfast the day before that? What book were you reading that week?”

“I get your point,” Nordhausen stopped him.

“Well, they could have pushed out patrols to reconnoiter the road. It could be very dangerous. The French effort to improve Ft. Julien at Rosetta was being hastened by urgent need. They were under threat of imminent attack, and Napoleon was not yet on the scene.”

“Napoleon arrived on the 24th of July, Paul. The battle of Aboukir wasn’t fought until the 25th. That’s when the real danger will present itself.”

“Yes but—”

“We’ll be out of there by then. The retraction is set to give us a 48 hour window, just like my mission to London. We’ll be gone by the 16th. I’ll bet Kelly was glad to hear that I had all those calculations worked out for duration timing and all. He said he could use my numbers on the retraction scheme, and it saved him hours. Don’t worry, Paul. We’ll be fine.”

“What if something goes wrong? Have you considered that? The first time we tried to open the continuum here the two of us ended up in Jurassic Park because Kelly made a typo! Lord, he was barely able to talk last night and—”

“That won’t happen this time. Kelly is fine. Is that what this is about? You’re worried about Kelly, aren’t you?”

“I’m worried about you all.” There was a moment of silence. “Look—if something does go wrong, you will need to stay with the stone. It arrives safely in Cairo, so they had to get it out of there somehow—most likely under escort. Stay with the stone, Robert, especially if you find it undamaged on the 15th. Get to Cairo.”

“Paul!”

“Here me out. You get to Cairo and lay low. Stay out of trouble. In particular, be wary of a man named Ahmed.”

“Ahmed? Who’s he?”

“Nobody knows. He was a mysterious figure that appeared in Cairo just before the Turks were set to land. He called himself the Mahdi, and he stirred up insurrection in the city.”

“The Mahdi? Oh, the Muslims always call on the image of the Mahdi when they want to stir up trouble. Remember that Shi’ite Mullah in Iraq?”

Paul thought for a moment. “Muqtada al Sadr? Yes. He raised his Mahdi Militias and raised hell for a while. Holed up in An Najaf, if I remember. That was quite a scene at the Shrine of Ali.”

“Exactly. These Muslims are always calling up images from their religious mythology to add propane to their politics. This Ahmed was probably just the same. What would you say to the disaffected masses of Cairo if you wanted to ignite a revolution against their oppressive Western occupiers? You’d claim to be divinely guided; you’d claim to be the Mahdi they have been waiting for all these centuries to liberate them from the deceivers and infidels. The Arabs have been wrapping their politics in religion for millennia, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Be watchful just the same.”

Nordhausen seized on Paul’s concern and drove home a point. “You think this man… you believe he may be an Assassin—an agent from the future?”

“I have my suspicions.” Paul folded his arms, one hand stroking his chin. “There were several odd things in the history that began to stick out in my mind when I bored into it again. Did you know that there were at least two obvious assassination plots against Napoleon during this campaign? The first incident occurred just after he landed and seized Alexandria. Upon entering the city Napoleon and his party were making their way through a very narrow street and they were fired upon by a man and a woman with a musket. The second incident was an ambush by a Nablousian on the 24th of May, 1799, as Napoleon’s troops retreated from Syria. The shot barely missed Napoleon’s head; they caught the man; four Guides put their carbine muskets to his back and pulled the triggers simultaneously. Now get this… All four guns misfired and the man leapt into the Red Sea, swimming for all he was worth. The entire troop fired at him as he went, but not a single shot hit home. He escaped.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Nordhausen said, giving Paul a mollifying glance. “What are you suggesting?”

“It’s odd, that’s all. It has a smell about it I don’t like. There were two attempts on the life of a Prime Mover and both failed. Either Napoleon’s Penumbra was already solidifying his position in the Meridian or… Well that second example was ludicrous! Very suspicious.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can see one of the carbines failing to fire at the assassin,” Paul concluded, “even two. But all four?”

“Are you suggesting the carbines were… tampered with?”

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting, but it seems that the assassin was living a charmed life too.”

“Assassin—“ Nordhausen was quick to pick up on that, the connection obvious to Paul’s discovery at Massiaf.

Paul nodded his agreement. “I’m just worried. This is shaping up to be a crucial Nexus on the Meridian. This business about the Rosetta Stone is becoming a magnet. Both sides could be at play in this, Robert. They could have agents there for the same reason we’re planning to go. In fact, they have decades to try and figure out what we’re up to here tonight. Suppose they do? If anything goes wrong, I’ve got these fallback extraction coordinates programmed, just in case. Be in Cairo, at the fountain square in the city center, on the night of August 1st. Be there at sunset. Can you remember that?”

“August 1st? But we’re only going to be there 48 hours, Paul.”

“Assuming all goes well.”

The professor stayed his effort to placate his friend and nodded his assent. “You really are worried.”

“I’ll run a Spook Job at sunset on the 1st of August to see if you made it,” Paul continued, “and every night thereafter until we spot you there.”

Robert had a wan expression on his face. “Can we survive that long—in the past, I mean.?”

“What?”

“Remember your mission to Massiaf? That Jabr fellow told you that the Walkers had but seven days. You started to fade, and it was just our good fortune that Kelly snatched you out before…” he seemed to stumble over his own thought now.

“Before Paradox took me?” Paul pressed on.

“Yes. Paradox. Well if we get stranded there how long will we be able to sustain ourselves in that Meridian?”

“We really have no way of knowing. Remember, they were using the Well, and I was not prepared to go through. In fact, I went through prematurely. Here we have the Arch.” He was trying to shore up his friend’s resolve now, and bolster his courage. “We’ll have solid pattern signatures on the two of you. That means we can run Spook Jobs and use the quantum scan feature of the Arch to try and locate your patterns. Besides, I don’t see how Paradox would come into play here.”

“You forget that I know all about the glyphs. It’s all in my head, Paul. How will time account for that when the Arch plops me down a day before the damn Rosetta Stone was even discovered!” A long silence settled between them until Paul spoke again.

“No worries,” he began. “You’ll be protected in a Nexus for the duration of the mission—at the very least. After that, you’ll be back here and…” he stopped himself, needing truth now as he was sending his friend off to centuries past. He looked at Robert a long time before he spoke again.

“You know what they say about discretion being the better part of valor. Just be careful, Robert. Hear me?”

Part V

Rosetta

“On the sea the boldest steer but where their ports invite;

But there are wanderers o’er Eternity

Whose bark drives on and on,

and anchor’d ne’er shall be.”

—Byron: Childe Harold III.lxx.

13

An hour later Robert and Maeve were down in the Arch watching the dizzying spin of light and shadow. The sound of the generators was very loud, and Maeve could feel the thrumming vibration as the Arch moved up to full power. Her throat tightened and her heart quickened in response. She felt a dreadful sense of fear and anxiety as they edged up to the thick yellow line that marked the boundary between this reality and some other. She wanted to close her eyes and shut the moment out, pretend that she was simply at home in her herb garden and the world was not askew. But a furtive glance at Nordhausen bolstered her courage. He was gazing at the whirl of color, his eyes alight with a sense of awe and excitement.

“Ready?” he asked, extending a hand.

“As ready as I can be,” she said. The professor’s hand closed around hers. She held fast to her parasol with the other hand, the beaded purse now dangling from her shoulder by a thin spaghetti strap. Everything was going to be fine, she told herself. Kelly was on the job in the operations center, and Paul was with him there, both able technicians. It was just a trial run—a Spook Job, like the little jump she had made to the Arabic Library to scout out Paul… just a brief manifestation to make sure their breaching point was clear of contamination in the target area. It would only be a few seconds…

Yet those last few seconds seemed to stretch out to infinity. What was she doing here? The tingling of the particle infusion sent a shiver to the very core of her being. How could this work? How could she stand here and have the root of her life plucked out and tossed into the wind? It was against her every instinct and desire. Why did she volunteer for this? It was madness!

Somewhere, the thinly diffused voice of Kelly came to her, calling down from the control room on the PA system.

“Ready for the big step? On my mark… Three, two, oops… Damn!”

That last word jolted her. It was not so much the unexpected invective as it was the tone of alarm in Kelly’s voice. He had been all business as he counted down—almost nonchalant. Then something happened. She gaped at Nordhausen, hoping to find the answer with him, but he was taken up with the thrill of the hunt and she suddenly felt herself being pulled forward, nearly falling, across the yellow line.

There was a vibrant rush of sound and light, and she instinctively closed her eyes. “Oh god… forgive me…” The words quavered out, drowned out by Nordhausen’s gleeful yelp as they passed into another reality.

~

Up in the control room Kelly was aghast. He was half way up from his seat, looking around him in a controlled panic as though he needed something at once.

“What happened?” Paul was at the particle infusion station, looking over his shoulder. The moment Kelly swore, his attention had been jerked away from the monitors and Paul turned to see Kelly’s face, clearly upset, as he pulled out his shirt tail and leaned forward over the console desk.

“Damn, damn, damn!” He swore again, annoyed with himself.

“What’s wrong?” Paul took one last look at the infusion console and started in Kelly’s direction.

“I was counting down and reached for my coffee. Spilled the damn cup all over my keyboard!”

Paul arrived at the workstation, breathless, and saw the mess. The mug was tilted on its side in a pool of dark coffee. Some of the liquid had run into the gaps between the keys, and Kelly was trying to swab up the excess liquid with his shirt tail.

“Be careful,” Paul warned. “Watch the chronometer.”

“I know—“ Kelly cut himself short as he glanced at the numerical readout on his console. “What? That’s not right…”

He tapped a function key. “Oh, crap! My keyboard must have shorted out. Quick Paul, I need a replacement—fast!”

The urgency in his voice struck Paul like a jolt of electricity. “Where are they?” he asked. “In the supply room?”

“Hell, there’s no time for that. Just yank one out of one of the other consoles. No—not the history module. Try that one.” Kelly was pointing at an empty workstation and Paul rushed over, unplugging the keyboard in a quiet rush.

By the time he had the board out and over to Kelly’s console he saw that his friend was just staring at the chronometer in disbelief. He immediately knew that this was much more than a simple accident. Something was wrong.

~

The light gave way to a cold mist that seemed charged with a scintillating static. Maeve stumbled forward, pulled along by Nordhausen and yet clutching to his hand as though her life depended on it. They were over the line and into the Arch. The scene around them disintegrated into darkness as she pressed her eyes tightly closed. Then the cold… so deep and penetrating that she felt as though she could never be warm again. It was the cold of infinity, of annihilation, a graveyard chill that sent uncontrollable shivers through her. For one wild moment she could not feel the ground under her feet. It was as if she was suspended in the air, feather light, or falling in an uncontrolled rush to oblivion. Then her feet felt the substance of something firm again, and the pull of gravity returned. She fell onto her knees, deeply shaken, and the beaded purse that had been dangling from her shoulder, slipped to the floor. The odor of ozone came to her, along with a sickly sweet smell that she could not quite place.

Nordhausen still had hold of her hand, his grip tight and firm. She opened her eyes to see that they were both enveloped in a gray fog, infused with a sheen of pale green light that was accented by faint sparks, like fireflies on a misty night. Tremors of cold still rippled through her body, but they grew still, and the warmth of life returned to her—a feeling of substance and presence, and weight.

“What?” The professor’s voice quavered out, and she looked to see the excitement in his eyes giving way to puzzlement. “Where are we?” He was looking around in amazement. “Now what has Kelly done this time?”

Presence of mind had finally returned to her, and she remembered who she was, and what she was about. Maeve struggled up, aided by Nordhausen, and the two of them stood gaping at their surroundings. This was not the road to Alexandria. They were not in the quiet of the early dawn near Abukir Bay, and worse yet, as the seconds passed, interminably long, she realized that they were not being pulled back to their own time. A Spook Job was just a quiet manifestation in the target zone and then return—or at least it was supposed to be. This was only the second time they had tried such an operation. If it worked as Kelly planned, they should be standing in the Arch corridor by now, safe in the year 2010. But instead they were gawking at the simple furnishings of a small room. The dull brown walls were shaped of dried earth with embedded stone, and hung with brightly colored tapestries. A thick rug covered the floor, with an ornate pattern in a stylized geometric design. Arabic, she thought, her mind filling in the blanks as they struggled to understand what had happened to them.

“He’s done it again,” Nordhausen was saying, but Maeve was still taking in her surroundings. Her eyes fixed on a low wood table, a few feet in front of them. There was a small tea pot of polished brass sitting on the table. Tiny curls of steam emerged from the curved spout, spiraling up into the dissipating fog about them. A simple porcelain cup was tilted on its side, the brown stain of freshly spilled tea still wetting the lacquered table top. She noted the simple decoration painted on the cup, a star embraced by a sickle moon and surrounded by Arabic writing.

“Damn the man,” said Nordhausen, “he’s botched the numbers again, I tell you! Now where in blazes are we?”

Maeve was still speechless as she watched the professor move cautiously toward a single open window on the far wall. It was clear that the shift had failed. They were not on their intended coordinates, at least not spatially. God only knew where they were, or when, but Nordhausen was already getting far too curious. She forced herself to speak, her voice dry in her throat.

“Stay put, Robert…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just have a look out the window. What is this place?”

Maeve’s mind began to piece things together, with one thought stumbling after another. It was daylight. The warm light was streaming through the single open window where Nordhausen was now standing, and gleaming off the polished buttons of his blue waistcoat. The spilled teacup pulled at her, suggesting that someone had been in this very room only a moment before. It was a single person, for there was only one cup. Perhaps he was sitting down for morning tea when the two of them began to manifest. Lord, what a fright that man would have had! Spook Job was a good handle for a mission like this, but something was clearly wrong. She looked about, noticing a half open door behind them, but there was no sign of anyone else. The poor fellow must have been frightened out of his mind.

She took in more details of the room… The rug was a simple prayer rug, undoubtedly oriented toward Mecca, wherever that was. There was a wash bowl, half filled with water to one side of the table, and a book lay upside down on the floor. She stooped to see that it was a copy of the Holy Koran.

“Lord,” she whispered… “Where are we? What have we done?”

Nordhausen turned from the window. “You can blame this on Kelly,” he accused. “He’s mucked up the breaching numbers again. It’s daylight, so the temporal shift is off as well. Looks like a city of some kind out there.” He gestured to the open window. “Damn quiet. Must be early morning.” His eye fell on a weapon set by the window, and he reached for it out of curiosity.

Maeve’s eyes widened. “Put that down,” she hissed in a strained whisper.

“What? No harm, Maeve. I’ll just have a quick look. Maybe it will give us a clue as to the time. At least we’re not in the Cretaceous. Whatever that rogue has done, it may only be a minor error. Look here, a nice strait barreled matchlock musket—fully primed and ready to fire…”

“Robert! Put that down. We mustn’t tamper with anything in this Milieu. It’s plain that something has gone wrong. Kelly will be trying to pull us out as quickly as he can. Besides…” She looked over her shoulder at the half open door. “I think someone was here when we came through.”

“What?”

“Look at the tea setting. The pot is still hot and the cup has been spilled.”

“Right you are,” said Nordhausen as he took note of the scene. “Well let’s hope we at least made it to Egypt.” His mind jumped ahead to a new assessment. “These pressed mud walls would be very typical of construction at the target date, and if this musket is any indication of the time I’d say this was a 19th Century weapon. Maybe we’re not too far off the mark after all.”

The quiet of the early morning was broken by a thrumming sound in the distance. It quickly resolved to a rhythmic beat, and Nordhausen edged to the window again, his head cocked to one side as he listened. The sound grew ever louder, accented with a steady tum, tum, tum of a drum beat. He leaned out, taking in a narrow cobbled street, and saw that a column of uniformed men were marching up the alley. They were led by an officer with a brightly colored plume on his cap and a drawn sword. Behind him came a group of twenty men at arms, all in blue, their long muskets shouldered in smart order, their faces stern and grim, as though set in stone.

A group of riders followed, and the professor squinted at the man in the lead, sitting bolt upright on a white stallion. He was clearly the officer in charge. Every aspect of his being shouted authority, with one gloved hand resting on the pommel of his saddle and the other grasping the rein with a sure and steady grip. The gold tasseled shoulder pauldrons marked him with high rank, though he wore no headgear. A curled tress of dark hair fell on his wide forehead, and his eyes surveyed the narrow alley as the column came on. Nordhausen squinted, rubbing his eyes as he looked, as though trying to clear his vision. The man seemed suddenly obscured in a violet haze. He blinked, and looked again with an expression of recognition and surprise stretching his features.

“Look here, Maeve!” He waved at her. “Come to the window!”

“Get away from there, Robert! What’s got into you? Put that thing down and get over here. We mustn’t move. We mustn’t touch anything. Don’t you understand?”

“It’s him, Maeve! Oh, if only Paul could see this. Look, he’s just there.” He gestured with the musket, jabbing it at the open window as the sound of marching feet beat heavily on the cobblestone alleyway.

~

Back in the control room Kelly was frantically trying to replace his damaged keyboard. He got the new unit plugged in, and shifted into his chair with a huff.

“What happened?” Paul was gesturing at the chronometer. “The readings are stabilizing, Kelly.” He looked at the particle infusion station, surprised to see the light was still holding at green. It should be yellow by now, he knew, and the retraction sequence should be kicking in to bring Maeve and Robert back.

“I must have hit the keyboard when I lunged to try and stop that spill. It looks like I triggered my shift modulator by accident.”

“Shift modulator? Is that something new?”

“I installed it last week. It was a new module I was using to make minor adjustments to the breaching sequence. I set it so I could nudge things by minutes, hours, days  or even whole years if I needed to adjust the temporal locus, and I have spatial flux programmed as well.”

“You moved them?” Paul gave him a wide eyed look.

“Well, not intentionally. It was an accident!”

“Where? Where are they, Kelly. The particle decay is still green. Why didn’t the emergency retraction scheme kick in?”

Kelly bit his lip, his eyes darting from one reading to another as he thought. “It did kick in—or at least it tried to. Look!” He pointed at an indicator on the console. “It went into emergency suspend mode.“

Paul dragged a chair over and slid in next to Kelly, his dark eyes taking in the situation as his friend pointed out the indicators. “You bumped them in space-time when you spilled the coffee,” he concluded. “Where are they?”

“Not far, I hope,” said Kelly. “Looks like they moved ahead of the target date… here, I’ve got a good reading now. They’re early.”

“How early?” Memories of that wild shift into the chasm of time flooded back to him now, and he was visualizing Robert and Maeve, all dressed up in their 19th Century garb, as they strolled through the late Cretaceous.

“Just a few days or so,” Kelly reassured him, almost as if he could read Paul’s apprehension. “Damn, I was supposed to turn the number lock off on my keypad before I initiated the run, but I just forgot.”

“Have you got a new breaching date?”

“Just a second… Here it comes now: July 2nd, just a few days off… but wait, It looks like the year is off as well. I’m reading 1798.”

“Backup chronometer agrees,” said Paul. His mind was reaching back in the history, and he knew the date was familiar. He reached for one of the volumes in Nordhausen’s research pile and began flipping through the pages. He did not have to look far, for all the relevant data was bookmarked. “Just as I thought,” he said with a deflated expression on his face. “It’s the date of the initial landing. Napoleon has just arrived off Alexandria. Lord, they’ll be right in the middle of things If the spatial coordinates hold.”

“They didn’t,” said Kelly sheepishly. “I really screwed this one up. Sorry Paul. Looks like I bumped them a few kilometers as well. All that from a damn coffee mug!”

“Pushpoint,” said Paul. “Little things have great effects. Let’s get them back, Kelly. The infusion chamber can’t hold for long. It must be feeding in the particle reserve to keep the singularity spinning. We have to yank their butts back to Berkeley, and fast!”

“I’m on it. You get over to the infusion module and hold that mix steady while I reset the retraction to these new coordinates. If they have their wits about them, and stay put, we should be able to pick up their pattern signatures from the flux.”

“Let’s hope Maeve has the good sense to keep a tight rein on Nordhausen.” Paul was hurrying, his movements betraying both the urgency and danger inherent in the situation. The error was not bad, but the hold they had on Robert and Maeve was keyed to the original target dates. The system tried to run a retraction scheme, but they were not there. Now Kelly was feeding in the new coordinates, a worried look on his face.

“There’s no way I can key this decimal in time. I’m patching the retraction vectors right into the space-time chronometer data. It’s the only way I can be sure.” He toggled three switches, and held his breath.

~

“Robert!” Maeve raised her voice as much as she dared, but it was clear that the professor was in a daze of excitement. He was completely beside himself, eyes alight with the fire of discovery and a ruddy glow on his cheeks. She had to do something. Kelly would be working, he’d be trying to pull them out. Robert had moved from his initial point of manifestation, and her instincts told her that this would complicate things, perhaps fatally, if Kelly was trying to retrieve them. In spite of her caution she found herself rushing across the room and grabbing Nordhausen by the lobe of his right ear in a hard pinch. “Damn it, Robert! Put that down and come away from the window!”

There was a loud crack, deafening as the musket went of in a flash. The professor was so startled by the ignition that the musket tumbled wildly from his grasp and fell with a hard thump to the pressed clay floor.

Maeve released him, covering her ears with the shock of the sound, but she quickly recovered and seized hold of Robert’s arm. There was shouting and wild commotion outside the narrow window. She heard the neigh of a horse and the scuffle of many booted feet. Deep voices barked out commands and she immediately recognized the language as French.

“What are you doing!” Nordhausen was aghast. “I could have killed someone! Do you know who’s out there?”

The world was spinning out of control. Maeve felt a dizzy sensation of nausea settle in her stomach. All she could think of was getting back to that first point of entry on this strange new world. It was the only safe island she could see, a retreat to the moment when they had first appeared, as though none of this had even happened. She would stand there, close her eyes, and make it all go away. But even as she pulled the professor along, she could hear the men outside drawing ever nearer.

“Stand here,” she commanded, her eyes riveting the professor. “And whatever happens next, don’t you dare move a muscle or say one single thing if those men find us here—understand?”

Nordhausen gave her a breathless look, but nodded his assent. They could hear men below them in the alleyway beating on a wooden door with the butts of their muskets. The door gave way with a loud crash and booted feet tramped into the rooms below them. The sound of their approach drove a rising anxiety through Maeve as she whispered a silent prayer.

“Kelly… Do something!”

Nordhausen took her hand again and the two stood stone still, just as they had been in the Arch only moments ago. Maeve felt faint as the voices and heavy footfalls grew louder on the stairs below them. The soldiers were hastening up to the second floor, kicking open one door after another.

14

“You’d better hurry, I’m losing the particle density.” Paul saw the reading turn yellow, and he knew the quantum fuel that was keeping the breaching sequence alive was ebbing fast. Kelly gave him an anguished look, hesitated for one brief moment, and then toggled a console switch. There was only one thing he could do now, though it meant he would have to sacrifice one of his emergency pattern signatures. He crossed his fingers, hoping that he would not have to move the travelers a second time.

The light on the infusion chamber began to blink red, and then went out. Paul looked over his shoulder with a worried expression. “I hope you have them, Kelly. The infusion mix is expended and the Arch is out of gas.”

“Hold on…” Kelly was watching his chronometer digits settle on a new target date. “Got them!” he exclaimed.

“Paul sighed with relief. “Good, I’ll go down and smooth things out with Maeve while you re-set things up here.”

“Umm… Don’t bother,” said Kelly, and the tone of his voice put Paul on edge.

“Why not?”

“Well, they’re not in the Arch. I knew we wouldn’t have enough intermix on the infusion chamber, so I just used my emergency pattern signature to nudge them forward to the correct target.”

“You mean…”

“Yup. I moved them to July 15, 1799. There was nothing else I could do once the particle infusion went yellow. There just wasn’t enough particle density for a retraction. But I took three pattern signatures while they were in the flux tube before the mission launch, so I just grabbed their pattern and we had just enough gas to get them where they were supposed to be in the first place.”

“But how will we get them back? This was just supposed to be a Spook Job.”

“We’ve still got the main mission retraction scheme programmed. When they manifest on the original target coordinates, and don’t get yanked home, they’ll realize something went wrong. They’ll just have to start the mission early.”

“Assuming the target coordinates were clear,” Paul suggested the one thing that could pose a real complication for them now. “What if they manifest right in the middle of a column of Turkish soldiers? I’m still a bit nervous about that breaching site. These blind jumps could be dangerous. That little coffee spill sent them back to the very day someone took a pot-shot at Napoleon as he entered Alexandria. Lord, who knows where they landed?” Then another question took the forefront of his thinking. “Did they shift OK?”

“Solid Green. Readings were 100%,” Kelly assured him. “I just patched in the original target vectors and bumped them forward. A little jump like that has almost no chance of pattern loss on the shift. Let’s just hope the target was clear.” He looked down at his coffee cup with a frown. “New rule,” he said with finality as he pointed a finger at his mug. “No coffee at the workstations during mission time.”

“Right,” Paul agreed, but his mind was already centuries away, wondering what was happening with Robert and Maeve.

~

And Robert and Maeve were wondering much the same. They heard heavy booted feet clomping down the hallway and, just as the door gave way, Robert felt the chill accompanied by that airy lightness of being that characterized time shift. He vaguely discerned the shape of a uniformed man bursting through the doorway, but then the milky green haze of eternity masked his vision, and his stomach rolled with the shift. This time he closed his eyes, hoping that Maeve had done the same. A moment later he felt the solidity of soft earth under his feet, and the travelers appeared in a haze of icy fog.

Robert steadied himself, feeling Maeve’s hand tight in his own. When he opened his eyes the room they were in had vanished. It was dark now but, as his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was just before dawn. The sky was lightening and slowly revealing a gray-brown landscape of undulating, sandy ground, with small stands of date and palm trees scattered here and there. There was a tinge of salt in the air, and Robert breathed deeply, taking in the fresh breeze that was coming off the ocean. He could not see the shoreline from the low depression in the ground where they huddled in the cold, but he could feel it, and hear the distant roll of wave sets breaking on the shore.

“Where are we?” Maeve’s voice was unsteady.

“I… Well I think this must be the road to Alexandria.” Nordhausen squinted trying to make out the lay of the land. “Kelly must have moved us back on our original target. I wonder where we were before?”

“Thank God,” said Maeve. “We almost had a nasty encounter there. When will you learn to keep your hands to yourself, Robert?”

“The damn musket wouldn’t have gone off in the first place if you would mind your own rules!” The professor was still rubbing his right earlobe where Maeve had given him a hard pinch. He stood upright, composing himself and straightening his white wig. There was a tinge of hesitation to his movements now, as if he expected another time shift at any moment. “At least the target vectors are clear. When the retraction kicks in, keep your eyes closed. In fact, close them now. We’ll need our wits about us for the real shift. I’ll give Kelly the thumbs up and he can drop us back here when the Arch is ready—unless you have an hour’s meeting in mind for debriefing on that little mishap we just went through.”

“Mishap? What’s got into you, Robert? You knew something was amiss and yet you went wandering off to gawk out the window. That bit with the rifle serves you right.”

“It was a musket, and I was only looking at it—until you tried to rip my ear off. I hope no one was injured when the damn thing fired. Do you have any idea who was out there? Napoleon! Yes, he was riding behind a column of French Guardsmen, and I have little doubt that those soldiers thought we were shooting at them. If someone was hit, it could have caused a major transformation. Let that be a lesson to you, my dear miss outcomes and consequences.”

Maeve just folded her arms and gave him a smoldering look. Then it occurred to her that they were still there. They weren’t being pulled back to the Arch complex in Berkeley. Whatever had caused the brief misfire was still plaguing the mission.

Nordhausen’s next remark seemed to vocalize her own thoughts. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Spook Job thing has a limited duration, right?” He fidgeted, looking around as if he was waiting for an overdue train. “Well,” he breathed heavily, “we’re here for good, I think.”

“Right,” Maeve agreed. “Something went wrong. We’re here for good.” There was very little enthusiasm in her tone, and the thought of what she was saying suddenly struck her. What if something really did go wrong and they could no longer get home? Where were they, exactly? Was Nordhausen correct in assuming they were back on the original target date?

At that moment the landscape about them was bathed in the bright yellow light of a rising sun. Brilliant shades of ochre and orange chased long shadows from the trees, and the sky took on a wonderful shade of azure blue. Sea birds wheeled above them, calling through the light morning mist.

“Dawn,” said Robert. “That’s a good sign. We were supposed to arrive just a few minutes before sunrise on the 14th. “

“So it seems,” said Maeve.

They stood in silence, taking in their surroundings. They were standing in the lee of a sandy dune, and Maeve saw that a thin track led away in both directions, just a few yards off. “The road to Alexandria?” she looked to the professor for confirmation and he nodded his agreement.

Maeve waited, looking this way and that, while the professor watched her with a half amused expression on his face. He looked like an English barrister who had caught a serving wench pilfering something in the streets.

“Well?” he asked, eyebrows raising in a smug expression.

“Well what?”

“Do we just stand here and wait for Kelly to pull us out, or does my lady give her leave for a bit of a stroll?” He pointed toward the sound of the ocean. “That would be north, I suppose. So, if we head east we should come up on the outskirts of Rosetta in no time at all.” He made a grand gesture, infusing the movement with all the politeness he could muster, but it was clear that he was enjoying Maeve’s discomfiture. “Unless of course you wish to insist we stay put. In that case we can just stand here for another forty-eight hours until the final retraction scheme kicks in.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Maeve flashed him a look that made it evident she was on to his little game. “Very well,” she took a deep breath and looked past Nordhausen’s grin to the east. At that moment she seemed to pale with fright, and pointed down the winding road with an unsteady hand.

The professor looked to see the source of her anxiety. A group of horsemen were riding hard, the dull thump of the horse’s hooves on the earth now apparent. “Oh my,” he said. “Unexpected company.”

“What do we do?” Maeve gave him a wide eyed look.

Nordhausen scratched the side of his ear, still feeling the twinge where Maeve had pinched him a moment ago, a year ago…

“Well we certainly can’t outrun them—not with you in those skirts and all. Besides. They look French. I say we stand where we are. Running would only arouse undue suspicion.”

“Damn,” Maeve cursed. “I’m… I’m not ready yet, Robert. What if—”

“Nonsense,” Robert cut in. “You say you can manage a bit of French, eh? Just stick to your story. We’re Americans… Off that damned ship—what was it?”

“The Perla,” said Maeve.

“Right. Well stick to your story and everything should be fine.”

“Oh, they don’t look friendly…” The riders were coming too fast, with an urgency that seemed out of place. One man, a heavy set figure in the lead, was pointing at them now. The morning breeze lifted his long gray cape behind him as he rode. Then Maeve heard him shout, and point directly at them.

“Voila!” The riders wheeled and reined in hard. There were two French cavalrymen in dark blue uniforms, and the man in gray, who gave them both an odd, expectant look. “Bonjour, Monsieur… Madame.” He nodded his head in a polite bow.

One of the soldiers spoke to the man in gray, his voice stern and demanding. Maeve listened, mentally translating as best she could. ‘These are the people you seek?’

“Certainement! Mercí, Capitain.” The man in gray smiled broadly, the early morning light highlighting the rouge of his full cheeks, his dark eyes glinting with excitement. “Mercí.” He was nodding his thanks to the two French soldiers, and speaking to them now, in a lowered tone of voice.

“Très bien.” The soldiers steadied their mounts, and one gave Robert and Maeve a long stare, somewhat suspicious from the look in his eye. “Américain, e?”

Maeve realized he was speaking to them, but the nature of the question took her by surprise. How could this man know they were Americans? A gentle nudge by Nordhausen prompted her to speak.

“Pardonnez-moi, mon Capitan.” She was quick to gather her wits, and effected a polite curtsy, as she knew she should. “Excusez mon français. Je ne parle qu’un petit peu de français. Est-ce qu’il y a quelqu’un qui parle anglais? Does anyone speak English?”

“I believe I can assist in that regard.” The man in gray gave her a gracious bow, introducing himself. “May I present myself as someone you should both know quite well—if I make my point clear enough.” He gave the two soldiers a sideward glance as he spoke, and his manner made it obvious that he was trying to convey some urgency. “Call me LeGrand. And do act like you’ve known me for some time. These gentlemen are quite busy, I’m afraid, and I should dearly love to send them on their way without further incident.”

Robert and Maeve just stared at him for a moment, not knowing what to say. Nordhausen’s eyes narrowed beneath the curls of his white wig and he was about to ask how this man could have possibly known they were Americans. Something in LeGrand’s manner spoke of caution, however, and so instead he opted for discretion.

“Why of course, monsieur LeGrand,” he began, eying his concern at Maeve.

“Docteur, LeGrand,” Maeve corrected him. She had quickly surmised that something was very odd about all this, but her instinct for caution needed no encouragement. It occurred to her that this man must be one of the Savants who accompanied the French on their mission to Egypt. In that case, it was more than likely that he would be a professional, or at least highly degreed.

“You are too kind, Madame,” said the heavy man in gray. “How auspicious that I have found the two of you. You see, these men have been quite on edge of late. The Turkish fleet is anchored not ten leagues away in Aboukir Bay. Word is that they’ve swarmed ashore by the thousands. Most inconvenient for our work here, wouldn’t you say? In fact, this very road is growing ever more dangerous for travelers. Won’t you be so kind and accompany me to town? I have sent for a carriage, which should arrive at any moment.” He winked at the French Captain as he spoke. “Why, there it is now!”

LeGrand pointed at a distant silhouette on the road to the east, backlit by the blazoning sun. He spoke quickly to the soldiers in French, and they regarded the carriage with a look approaching disdain.

“Monsieur Fauche, the good Captain here, is somewhat bothered by civilian doings these days. It has been an arduous campaign this past year, you understand. He has had his hands quite full, and needs no bother from the likes of scholars and hangers on, or so he describes the men of letters these days.”

“Of course,” said Maeve, her wits about her now. “Please thank the Captain for his gracious escort. You say the Turks have landed nearby?” She feigned surprise, casting a fearful glance over her shoulder toward the sea. “A lady cannot be too careful under such circumstances, yes? Please tell the Captain how comforting it is to have the protection of his guard.” She offered a smile, and the Captain met her glance with a pleased expression as Le Grand conveyed her thanks. The Frenchman tipped his cap with a gentlemanly nod of the head, sitting a bit taller in the saddle now.

“Bonjour, Madame,” he said with a smile, then nodded to Nordhausen in farewell as he pulled his mount about and gestured at his compatriot. The two men rode off, heading west on the road to Alexandria.

“A patrol,” LeGrand explained. “Wanted to know what I was doing out here, in fact. How lucky for me to happen upon the two of you as I did.”

“Oh?” Nordhausen’s suspicions needed an answer now. “And just what were you doing out here at the break of dawn, Doctor, if you do not mind my asking?”

“Why, I was waiting for you, of course.” LeGrand smiled at them, gesturing warmly at the approaching coach. “I believe the lady dropped something a moment ago, and I thought to return it.”

Nordhausen looked at Maeve, and they were both bewildered again, but LeGrand let out a hearty laugh and reached into a pouch that was sewn into the lining of his riding cape. “Madame,” he said warmly as he held out an object.

It was all Maeve could do to stop her jaw from gaping open, for LeGrand was holding her beaded purse.

15

The carriage arrived in a flourish of dust, a small covered gig drawn by a single horse. LeGrand gestured magnanimously, though his eyes were wells of apology. “Forgive me, but it is simply impossible to find a decent carriage in Egypt these days. I managed to hitch this together in the bazaar. The French have confiscated most of the good riding stock, but I found a plough horse and got him for a good price.”

Robert and Maeve were still taken aback, Maeve staring from the beaded purse, to Robert, to LeGrand in bewilderment.

“Oh, do hop on,” said their host. “The driver knows the way, and when we reach town I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions. I’ll meet you there soon. Good Day!” He rode ahead, and Robert shrugged his shoulders.

“Ladies first,” he said. “We may as well ride. It will be quite warm soon, and who knows how far the town is.”

They climbed into the carriage and the driver, a surly looking peasant in a soiled white tunic, goaded the horse with a thin stick to get it moving. They sat on a plain wood seat, and the carriage cover was little more than a stretch of canvas draped over a trellis of thin cedar.

“What do you make of this?” Maeve was still gawking at the beaded purse, her mind trying to grasp how it could have come into LeGrand’s hands.

“That’s the same purse you took through the Arch?”

“Exactly the same. I had it on my shoulder… but now that you mention it, I can’t recall having it with me when we manifested here. I think it must have slipped off my shoulder when we first arrived—in that house—wherever that was.”

“Very strange…” Nordhausen eyed the purse with a furrowed brow, considering. “Perhaps it shifted to this milieu separately?”

“And LeGrand just happens across it by chance and makes a miracle guess that it must certainly belong to a hapless American couple who would be arriving soon along that very same road.” The tone of her sarcasm quickly dispatched any rational argument the professor had thought to make.

“Yes… a bit sticky, isn’t it? Did you hear that French Captain call us Americans?”

“He did.”

“I thought the same, but I’ll be damned… What’s going on here?”

“Well,” said Maeve, “at the very least I’d say our cover is blown.”

“Could it be our dress? Are you sure this clothing is appropriate?”

“The costume is fine. No, I had the sense that LeGrand expected us. He said as much when he gave me this.” She held up the purse

“Perhaps he was only being coy. I mean, suppose the purse did shift separately, and he happened upon it by chance. He spies us on the road and makes the natural assumption that we dropped it—that you dropped it. Why, if I found such a thing I would certainly assume it to be the possession of a lady. And you’re the only one who matches that description in these parts right now.” He resurrected his first argument, but Maeve just shook her head.

“This is simply too much of a coincidence to have happened by chance, ” she said. “His actions were very telling; very deliberate. He was making subtle implications from the first word out of his mouth. I think he meant exactly what he said, Robert. He expected us here. He was riding out with this carriage to find us and, if that’s the case, then he’s—”

“Not from this milieu?” Nordhausen finished her thought. “Well, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. I go off to Jordan to recover my Ammonite, and look who I run into—an Arab on a courier mission to the twelfth century! It’s clear now that these people are operating throughout the continuum, whoever they are. But how would this LeGrand fellow know we would be here?”

“You forget that if he is another time traveler, they have hundreds of years to research what we do… what we’ve done… what we’re going to do. It’s maddening, but how else to explain this?”

“I think we had best get some answers from LeGrand.”

The way was not far, and they soon found themselves at the outskirts of a dry and dusty looking town. There were a few small farms, brown fields watered by narrow irrigation channels, with clusters of date trees lining the way ahead. The buildings seemed adobe mud for the most part, though farther on they began to encounter a few more substantial stone structures. It was to one of these, a single story inn at the edge of town, that the driver took them. Nordhausen was pleased to see that LeGrand was already waiting for them, his horse tied to a rickety hitching post.

Dismounted he turned out to be a fairly short man, broad in the shoulders, yet with a sturdiness that tended more to brawn than to excess weight. Gray-brown tresses of hair dangled freely from beneath a floppy headpiece, framing his round face and high, ruddy cheeks. As the carriage pulled up he smiled broadly, his eyes alight with a mischievous glint that seemed ignited by his wit.  “Greetings, my American friends. I trust your ride was enjoyable. Lovely morning, though I’m afraid it will get very hot this afternoon. Then we’ll have the flies, the French soldiers, and all the rest. But for now, may I offer you a quiet place to shelter from the sun? Perhaps a cup of tea?”

“You are too kind,” said Maeve. “We have a hundred questions, Doctor LeGrand, not the least of which is this purse.”

“Ah, yes, the purse. I thought that would tickle your imagination. Let me see… How did I come by it, and how in blazes would I know it was yours, let alone that you would be here, this very morning, on the road to Alexandria?”

“Precisely,” said Nordhausen, somewhat annoyed with the man’s flippant manner.

“Well, the lady left it behind. You really should be more careful, I suppose. But, seeing as though you are still relatively new to this business, I can understand.”

“Left it behind?” Nordhausen pressed him. “What do you mean? You found it on the road, yes?” He put forward his hypotheses, hoping that LeGrand would confirm his guess and relieve them of their worst fears.

“On the road? Not exactly,” said LeGrand. “If you must know, I found it a year ago, in Alexandria. You see, I had the pleasure of riding in the van with Napoleon’s guard when he entered the city that day. Imagine my surprise when someone took a pot shot at the man from a window overlooking the alley.”

Nordhausen gaped at the remark, looking at Maeve in amazement.

“Yes,” LeGrand pressed on. “No one was hurt, thank goodness. The soldiers were very efficient. They searched every house on the street and found a recently discharged musket. But the assailant—the assailants I should say, had vanished. Witnesses claim they saw a man and a woman at the window when the shot was fired. It was very strange… until I found the purse, of course.”

“I don’t understand,” said Maeve.

“Well it was clearly European in style, beaded in the fashion of 19th century France. By the way, your costuming is very good, my lady. The professor’s wig is a tad small for his face, but I think it lends him an air of credibility, wouldn’t you say?”

Nordhausen resisted the instinct to straighten his wig, folded his arms, and glared at the man. “See here… speak plainly now. Just who are you and how do you know us? How did you know we would be here on this road?”

“Well the purse, of course. It was all written down. Really, Miss Lindford, you should be a bit more cautious. Using a ball point pen to make notations is one thing, but taking the note with you through the Arch is quite another. Tisk, tisk.”

That last remark swept away any notion that this man might be a local. Maeve looked at Robert and the two of them quickly recalibrated their thinking to the proposition that LeGrand was indeed a fellow traveler in time.

“Oh, it was all in your notes,” LeGrand continued. “You penned the target date you were trying to reconnoiter, the premise of your entry, details about the Perla, the missing Americans lost at sea, your idea in assuming their identity—quite clever, really. But then again, I should expect nothing less from the redoubtable Maeve Lindford.” There was a special fire in his eyes as he said that, and Maeve was warmed enough to return a half smile.

“You wrote all that down and brought it with you?” Now it was Nordhausen’s turn to raise eyebrows over abuse of protocol. “I distinctly remember you chiding me: No PDAs, cell phones, wrist watches, Parker Pens and all. Then you go and slip a note like that into your purse?” Maeve merely squinted in his direction, her thoughts and attention focused entirely on LeGrand for the moment, her mind running down a hundred corridors.

“We had quite a start at first,” LeGrand continued, leading them into the outer court of the inn. “We couldn’t figure out why you would want to get involved in the assassination plot against Napoleon.” He lowered his voice, checking to see if any locals overheard him, but the innkeeper was not at his desk and the courtyard was empty.

“Assassination plot?” Nordhausen was aghast. “Why, we had no such idea, I can assure you.”

“Oh? Then what, pray tell, were you doing there?”

“If you must know, it was a simple error. We never had any intention of manifesting on those coordinates. It was all a mistake.”

“Indeed? How enlightening,” LeGrand smiled. “Here we thought it was all carefully planned—one of your master strokes, if I may. You’re telling me it was an error? How quaint! We never did have good data on that incident. If your manifestation was by chance or accident, then there must be a ripe little Pushpoint out there somewhere that we have yet to find.” He clasped his hands together heartily. “But then again, that’s what makes this business so interesting, eh professor?”

“Riveting,” said Nordhausen, still not over the flare of indignation that had raised his anger. “And just what were you doing there, with the pleasure of riding in the van as Napoleon entered the city? Tell me that, sir.”

“Observation, my dear professor. We suspected something was afoot with that incident. It had all the makings of an Ismaili plot. But I overreach myself. Perhaps we should begin with a better introduction. Come, follow me to my quarters. It will be more secure there, and we can speak without constantly looking over our shoulder.”

He led the way, pointing out a low arch that took them to a narrow hallway lit by guttering oil lamps. “Accommodations are rather dingy here,” he apologized, but I’ve already had the porters lug in some additional bedding—that is if you plan on sleeping before your retraction. Frankly, I can hardly close an eye on a short term mission. Too edgy, I suppose.”

They entered a moderate sized room, the windows covered by loosely woven burlap shades admitting a pale light. It smelled of straw and, strangely, tobacco. There were several threadbare mattresses, little more than rumpled sacks, spread out flat on the earthen floor, and a few low stools for sitting.

“Be my guests,” LeGrand gestured to a small table where a steaming pot of hot water sat next to three porcelain cups. Oh, it’s not the Royal London, but it will have to do for now. I do have some fairly good tea, however. Filched it from the supply wagons used by the Savants. No honey to sweeten the brew, I’m afraid.”

“It will do just fine,” said Maeve, though Nordhausen only glowered, with a look on his face that approached sulking. It was clear to Maeve that he was very suspicious of this interloper, watching him closely.

LeGrand removed his riding cape and hat, shaking out a full head of curly hair. They seated themselves on the low stools and he poured three cups of tea, raising the last in a toast.

“Allow me to introduce myself formally,” he beamed. “I am Jean LeGrand, local Sergeant for this particular milieu.”

“Sergeant?” Nordhausen sniffed his cup, tentatively. “You are in the army?”

“Sergeant of Arms,” LeGrand corrected. “It’s more of an administrative title than anything else, but the Order has military proclivities in times such as these, eh?”

“The Order?” The professor had heard that before—from Paul, who had been grilled by the keepers of Castle Massiaf on his inadvertent mission through the Well of Souls.

“The Order of Temporal Knights—the Knights Temporal, if you like that better. If you haven’t figured all this out by now, you will. No harm in discussing it, I suppose, we’re all in a Nexus Point now, and things will work out one way or another.“

Maeve took a moment to digest that, sipping her tea and nodding appreciation to their host. She looked at Nordhausen, as if to chide him for his bad manners. “Well,” she said at last. “It seems we have a lot to discuss, Doctor LeGrand. To answer your assumption, yes, we were beginning to come to some understanding of all this. I’m sure you will be kind enough to convey the details. This Order you speak of, you are engaged in the business of time travel?”

“Business? That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. I’m not in the financial wing of the Order—you know, the folks that get to go back and make all the right investments to insure funding for future operations. Too dull for my blood. No, I’m on to a different business. I suppose you’d call it intelligence gathering in the parlance of your day. I’m an agent in place, permanently assigned to this milieu.”

“You mean to say you’re a spy?” Nordhausen did not mince words. “For who?”

“Why, for the Order, of course. And if I may ask without offering any insult, what were you about on this mission? Reconnaissance? Oh—I believe the term you used was ‘Spook Job,’ but I suppose that, too, could be considered a bit of a spy job as well. Yes?”

“We have our reasons,” the Professor folded his arms again, still guarded in his dealings with this stranger.

“Don’t we all,” said LeGrand. “You’re here for the discovery, of course. Well, I’ve just got word to be especially alert over the next few days. It seems that something is amiss and they want me to look into it as well. The French are going to start work on the embattlements of Fort Julien tomorrow. We can all go together! It’s not far from here, and I can assure you a safe vantage point for your observation.”

Nordhausen frowned. “You mean to say you’re here for the discovery of… of the stone?”

“Well, not exactly. I’m here all the time—permanent assignment to Napoleon’s mission. It’s what we like to call a rough spot in the timeline as it concerns our general operations—one of those nasty little points of interface between the Muslim world and the West. I came over with the fleet when it first set sail from Italy. I’m one of the Savants, you see.”

“You manifested over a year ago? You can stay here that long?”

“My friend, you can stay anywhere you please, for as long as you like, if you know how to go about it. You have to find someone whose Meridian is abruptly cut short in the milieu you are targeting, and then assume that identity—why, just like those unfortunate Americans on the Perla. You get the idea. In fact, we got it from you, Miss Lindford. You set a fine example for us indeed.”

“You are too kind,” said Maeve.

“Yes. In my case I have assumed the identity of a scholar taken by brigands on the road as he made his way to the mustering of the fleet. It took some doing to find a spot for me. There were only three candidates, and this one, LeGrand, was the only one that offered good prospects. He was an only son, orphaned from an early age; a bit of a recluse, and someone whose last close tie on earth is about to pass away. His aunt has a touch of the fever, and it will claim her life in another week or so. In fact, he was set on this mission because his life in Europe had come to dismal ends—no friends, too many enemies, that sort of thing. He was on the run from bill collectors as much as anything else. In any case, it worked out perfectly. I can take on his identity, enjoy the harrowing sea journey as the French fleet plays cat and mouse with Nelson on the way over. I can arrive in Aboukir Bay on that glorious morning when Napoleon first lands, and join his triumphant entry into Alexandria.”

“Amazing,” said Nordhausen.

“Oh, it’s a wonderful assignment. Yes, it has it’s dull moments, and you certainly have to keep your wits about you. The march across the desert is a nasty experience for the soldiers. I went that way the first time and nearly died of thirst and heat. Then I got wise and stayed with the river flotilla on the Nile my second time through. There’s danger on that route as well. We have a run in with Murad Bey and his bloodthirsty Mamluks, but that’s nothing compared to the trek across the desert.”

“You make it sound as if you’ve been here before,” said Nordhausen.

“Before? Yes. I’ve done the whole tour three times. I’ve seen it all: the battle of the Nile, the first look at the great pyramids, that marvelous engagement with the Mamluks there, and the insurrection in Cairo. That first year is full of excitement. Then Napoleon gets this idea about driving through to cut the British Empire in half and isolate their operations in India. He’s such a rogue, that one. I don’t really enjoy that part of the tour. There’s that long march across Sinai, the nasty engagements along the way. The shooting of the prisoners and the siege of Acre are particularly unpleasant. When you throw the plague into the mix, you can see that it becomes rather trying. But I have to go along. It’s part of the duty. You never know when something will come up that you don’t really expect. The second assassination attempt on Napoleon took place just a few weeks ago on the retreat.”

“Yes!” Nordhausen latched on to that. “Paul pulled me aside and gave me an earful about that before we left. He said there was a man who shot at Napoleon on the road. Four guides cornered him and put their carbines to the man’s belly—but all four misfired.”

“That was quite a scene!” LeGrand slapped his thick knee to accent the professor’s remark. “Would that be Mr. Dorland you are referring to?”

“What? You mean Paul? Yes, of course.”

“Ah, what a genius the man must be. I must say, this is quite an honor to meet the two of you this way. It’s a perfect example of what I was just describing. You weren’t here on my first two tours, you see. At least I was unaware of your presence if you were. That incident in Alexandria was the breadcrumb that put us on the right trail.”

“Alexandria?” Nordhausen was now building up an excited curiosity, his suspicions melting as LeGrand unraveled his story.

“Of course! You see, the first two times we thought it was a local Arab—a dissident, or perhaps even an agent, who fired the shot from that alley window in Alexandria. We found the room, the discharged musket, the prayer rug, washing bowl and a copy of the Koran opened to a particularly telling passage. Imagine my surprise this last tour when I happened across that purse! I sent it back at once, of course—note and all. They put the full resources of the research department on it. Outcomes and Consequences went round and round, and the upshot of the lowdown is that I get a message to be particularly alert on the morning of July 14th. I’m told to look for two Americans on the road to Alexandria—given precise coordinates in fact. Lo and behold, I am graced by the arrival of Nordhausen and Lindford! Imagine my surprise and delight!”

“You say you sent the purse back?” Now it was Maeve’s turn to take up the questioning.

“Of course. Any evidence of temporal contamination must be removed from the Meridian at once. It’s a rule we have. I sent it back for analysis, and it was returned, via special courier, only last night. I was told to look for two Americans on the road west of the town. Research must have found trace indicators linking your arrival here to the incident last year in Alexandria. Apparently the decision was made to restore the purse to its rightful owner for proper disposition. I was to present it to the lady on the road, and so I have.” He made a graceful bow, smiling as he finished.

“Ingenious,” Nordhausen breathed. “You were aware of our mission all along?”

“Not exactly. As I say, this is something new. The discovery of the purse did indeed lead us to a Founder’s mission. That’s what we call you, if you don’t mind the burden of history. We were not quite sure what to make of it at first but, if they sent in a special courier, the situation must be developing to something very significant. I don’t know what they’ve determined back home in operations, but it seems certain they now believe a Nexus is forming, deepening by the minute, and it appears to be centered here, on the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.”

“Then you know of it?” Nordhausen was getting somewhat agitated.

“Yes, I know of it: the discovery that leads to the decipherment of the hieroglyphics.”

“How strange,” Nordhausen started, then caught himself. “But that makes sense. You’ve been here since Napoleon landed. The variation shouldn’t have had any effect on your recollection. Can you read them?” The professor’s cheeks bore the heat of his excitement now.

“Read them? No. I was never that astute. I’ll leave that to the linguists. It’s just my job to keep watch here and look in on situations that might be… problematic. The last courier told me we got a variation alarm on the incident, and so now I have to be especially vigilant. Our touchstone bank indicated we were missing some vital data, and that’s enough to get alert flags flying all across the continuum.”

Maeve smiled. “I see Kelly’s RAM bank idea took hold.”

“Mr. Ramer? Oh my, there’s another genius. Why, if not for him the whole course of history would play out differently. He’s a Prima Majór, that’s what we call the really indispensable figures of history. It all comes from him, you see. Yes, Mr. Dorland was the initiator, and both of you are absolutely vital to the whole endeavor as well, but Mr. Ramer is the real lynchpin. It all rested on his shoulders. The Ramer Loop, the RAM bank as you call it, all came out of his head, and he set the template down that guides our operations even now. Why, without him it never even happens. In fact—it was never supposed to happen. It was his life that gave birth to this entire Meridian, and everything in it.”

Maeve had an admiring smile on her face. “You’re speaking of that first night now, aren’t you. You’re associated with Mr. Graves, and the people who sent him back the night of the Palma event.”

“Of course,” said LeGrand. “Graves was one of our Grand Masters. His research identified Mr. Ramer as the key to the whole operation. We had to preserve his integrity in the Meridian, or else none of this would have ever taken place.”

Nordhausen seemed deep in thought. “I’m not entirely sure I understand you,” he said. “You’re speaking of the final briefing on Memorial Day weekend before our planned mission to see The Tempest.”

“A fateful night, if I may say so,” LeGrand confirmed.

“Well… I may be a dolt when it comes to this time theory but, if I understand it correctly, Kelly was supposed to die that night—sorry Maeve.” He noticed the twinge in her face as he said that. “Kelly was to be killed in a senseless car accident, and we never had our first time mission. What I don’t understand is this: if that is so, then how was it you were able to send Mr. Graves back? If we never tested the theory, how did you travel in time? Is that a Paradox?”

“Paradox?” LeGrand’s jovial expression darkened at the word, and he cast a reflexive glance at the window. “No, that is not what we understand Paradox to be, but let us not speak of that just now. On the other hand… we are in a Nexus Point, and that does give us a bit of latitude until it resolves. I may be taking a risk in saying this but—”

“You found our research.” Maeve interrupted, matter of factly, and LeGrand breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yes! Exactly! Now that you’ve hit upon the answer yourself, I can explain the whole, if you like. You are quite shrewd, Miss Lindford. I should never underestimate you, my lady.”

Maeve smiled. “Do go on, Doctor LeGrand.”

“Of course. To put it plainly, Palma happened… Yes, I lived in that generation—the last generation of Western sires, or so we thought. We were desperate. The wave sets that destroyed the Eastern Seaboard set off a chain of events that would make your Hollywood movie moguls quite jealous. Suffice it to say that we were at our wit’s end, until we found Mr. Dorland’s research in the memorial site for Mr. Ramer. It was Graves who found it. That’s not his real name, but we have called him that because of his discovery at the cemetery. He hit on the idea that time travel was a possibility, and he was digging into every avenue of research on the subject he could find. Imagine his surprise when he literally dug up the whole of Mr. Dorland’s theory and project data where you had buried it with Mr. Ramer that first terrible week.”

“Buried it?” Nordhausen looked at Maeve, as if she had something to do with the events LeGrand was describing.

“That is what you did—in the previous Meridian—the original time line we now call the Prime Meridian. Mr. Ramer died that night and the grief was too heavy on the three of you to continue the project. It was buried, along with your friend’s body, and the whole matter was laid to rest. Then you all went about the business of trying to survive the horrors that followed. I will not speak any further of that…” His voice trailed off, his eyes now devoid of the mirthful light that had animated them before. LeGrand leaned in, speaking in a near whisper as he continued.

“So it was all found in a graveyard, buried for centuries, and Graves has borne that name with us ever since. He argued that we should attempt the project. We used all your research, and built an Arch with the last of our resources. It was very dangerous for us, you understand. The world bore little resemblance to the days of Western dominance and the reign of Democracy. Sharia was the order of the day. Islam ruled the earth with an iron fist of Koranic discipline. Christianity was all but eradicated. A few of us banded together, in secret, a hidden order struggling to survive in a world where the crucifix was deemed a blasphemy and a certain death mark for any who carried one.”

“Amazing,” said Nordhausen.

“Truly. But Mr. Graves was our own reincarnation of the savior, if I may speak metaphorically. He tested the Arch and found it would work. He created the Order in which we all now serve, and it was his research and determination that set us on a crusade to reverse Palma. It took us years to isolate the vectors and define a plan. The whole project was nearly uncovered three times by the Islamic Fedayeen, but, by some miracle, we preserved our cover. It was Palma… that was the key. But we could not get through the shadow that event cast upon the Prime Meridian. Then Graves had his second epiphany. There was a fully functioning Arch in place before Palma. We did not have to go back through the Shadow to a time well before to the target date to try and alter the event. If we could just reach the Arch in Berkeley, on the night of your final briefing, then we could take action from there, or at least enlist your support. The shadow was not yet formed. It offered us our only prospect for success.”

“Well,” said Nordhausen, “we were certainly happy to be of service but, quite frankly, I can’t think of a single thing we did on that mission to change the course of events. Paul will say the same.”

“Oh really?” LeGrand raised his eyebrows. “Here I was hoping you could enlighten me a bit on that question.”

“Sorry,” said Nordhausen. “We were just stumbling about, trying to find our way through the desert. The whole matter was nothing more than a fit of chance, I suppose. We never even laid eyes on this man we were looking for.” He looked at Maeve, the name escaping him.

“Masaui,” she offered.

“Yes,” said Robert. “Perhaps you could answer one other thing for me, Doctor: What was it that was so special about that man?”

“Masaui?” LeGrand tilted his head to one side, thinking. “Well, nothing, really. He was just a simple farmer and herder of sheep, from a humdrum village in the middle of Turkish occupied nowhere. But you see, that’s exactly the sort you have to look out for. He was the seed of our disaster, to be sure. Oh, it wasn’t Masaui, but his daughter Ada. She was the real problem. If Masaui lived out that train ride, then he goes on to have a daughter, Ada, born some years after the war, in 1922. She was a particularly fetching lady, it seems, and caught the eye of an Arab Emir, one Abu Abas al Sabar. They married in 1942, right in the middle of the second great war, and they had a daughter instead of a son. Now the grand terrorist, Ra’id Husan al Din, was supposed to be born of this Emir but, after the outcome at Minifir was altered, he never comes into being. In the Prime Meridian, time line that led to Palma, the Emir married… someone else. That was the marriage that gave birth to the terrorist, but it was prevented by the beauty and simplicity of Masaui’s daughter, Ada. Once the Emir laid eyes on her, he would have no other woman. Call it love, call it obsession—but whatever it was, it saves the Western world.”

Nordhausen leaned in, somewhat excited. “Then by preventing the destruction of that train, we spared Masaui’s life and allowed his daughter Ada to be born?”

“That’s about the size of it,” LeGrand smiled.

“And the rest is history,” Maeve quipped. “At least the history that we know.”

“Precisely!” LeGrand beamed with admiration. “Saving Mr. Ramer’s life changed everything. He is regarded as the Dean of the Prime Meridian—possibly the most significant life line of any man ever born in the Western world.”

“Well,” said Nordhausen, “he very nearly died at the end of that mission. I understand you people had something to do with his survival.”

“Oh yes,” LeGrand returned. “That’s where Paradox takes shape, a ravenous beast that devours anything that it cannot account for on the newly transformed Meridian. We exerted ourselves mightily to save his life—to preserve his integrity. Thankfully, we succeeded.”

“I see,” said Nordhausen. “Then you had nothing to do with the tampering of the memorial site where we thought to bury Kelly after he vanished?”

“Tampering? What are you speaking of?”

“We buried a video that led to your discovery of the exact spatial and temporal coordinates of Kelly’s last moments.” Again, he looked at Maeve, somewhat apologetically.

“It was Graves who found it—just another ripple from his original discovery, I suppose. His retraction was a timed event. We pulled him out to preserve the Meridian of his own life.”

“Yes,” said Maeve. “I was just about to serve him tea when he turned up missing.”

“We pulled him out,” LeGrand reiterated with a look of pride. “Amazingly, the moment he returned he went straight to the memorial site and found the DVD that Mr. Dorland buried there. Time has a funny way of echoing like that when things change. Do you know that the memorial site you chose was identical to the place you first laid Mr. Ramer to rest in the Prime Meridian?”

“History does not repeat itself,” Nordhausen quipped, “but it does rhyme.”

LeGrand smiled, then a squall of concern clouded his features. Maeve was watching him closely now, an odd expression on her face, as though she were coming to a silent inner conclusion about him.

“But what is this tampering you speak of?” LeGrand went on. “Are you saying the site was violated?”

Nordhausen took a deep breath. “Three days ago Kelly was taken ill—a strange malady. I thought it was my fault at first. I was… doing some research; following up a hunch. Then Paul and I uncovered evidence of tampering at Kelly’s memorial site. Someone dug up the grave and stole the video!”

“What?” Now it was LeGrand who was struck with wide eyed amazement.

“Yes, but it was only fortune or good habits that Paul had a backup file on hand, and we published it all over the Internet. Kelly recovered, but we aren’t quite sure about him.” He looked at Maeve again, but she held up a hand to reassure him that all was well. Her eyes were fixed on LeGrand, a look of suspicion clouding her features now. Then she took the baton herself.

“We think his life is in jeopardy again,” she said flatly. “We think someone is trying to kill him.”

“Good God…” the look on LeGrand’s face made it plain that he knew nothing about the incident. His eyes darkened, and he began to fidget, his hands rubbing together in a nervous activity. “I haven’t heard any of this. The courier said nothing whatsoever about it. If this is true, then we have more on the table here with your arrival than I first thought. This could be a Deep Nexus now; a moment of transformation. We may all have a vital part in deciding things before your mission is over. I was told to be on alert, but I don’t think the Order knows how serious this is. How long are you here?” He asked the question quickly, with a sudden sharpness of mind that set them on edge.

“Forty-eight hours,” said Nordhausen.

“Two days,” breathed LeGrand. “Two days. That’s not much time at all, but then the important things never need much. Damn! I had better have my wits about me. I never thought I would have a hand in a major transformation, but here it is, right in front of me, and all because of a loose strap on that damn purse to set me on your trail.”

Part VI

Travelers

“The use of travel is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”

—Samuel Johnson: Anecdotes

16

Le Grand’s eyes seemed to light up with the revelation that now filled his mind, his thoughts spilling quickly into animated speech as he considered the situation.

“First things first,” he said. “You must tell me why you’ve come. Oh, joy! What an honor this is. You really have no idea. Why, it’s livened up things quite a bit! This was the last month of my tour, you see. Napoleon is on his way here even as we speak. He’s received word that the Turkish fleet has appeared, but that wheezing old Mustapha Pasha is just sitting on the beach out there while his men try to secure the French garrison at Aboukir Castle. That’s where those two kind soldiers were off to when you arrived. Well, I suppose you know the history as well as I do.”

“Quite so,” said Nordhausen. “Napoleon left Cairo on the eleventh of July, but he will be twelve days getting here.”

“Too bad you can’t stay for the final battle! I’ve seen it twice now, and it’s well worth the wait. Oh, it’s not quite as spectacular as the Battle of the Pyramids, but it’s a darn site better than that nasty business in Palestine. Murat is leading the French Cavalry in the van. Napoleon won’t wait for Kleber’s Division. With the Turks picking their noses on the beaches, he just sends in enough foot soldiers to force the Pasha’s entrenchments, and then Murat dashes in with one of those cavalry charges that he becomes so famous for. It’s really quite a show!”

“Sorry we’ll miss it,” said Nordhausen, “but we came on… other business.”

“Oh, yes,” LeGrand rolled his eyes. “The discovery. You’re here for just 48 hours. You arrive on the 14th and leave on the 16th. The big day is tomorrow, of course. It’s nothing so grand as a battle, but the finding of the stone is something of a windfall for Western scholars. Being somewhat of a Savant myself, I always ride forward to Rashid here for the recovery. But why are you so interested in it? Did you pick up on the variation as well?”

“Yes,” said Nordhausen. “Damn lucky I suppose. As I have said, I was doing some research at the British Museum. It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that I wanted to have a good look at the Rosetta Stone to confirm a suspicion I’ve been brooding on. Imagine my surprise when I found it damaged.”

“Damaged? What are you speaking of?”

Nordhausen related the details of his mission to London, and the harrowing discovery that no one could read the glyphs upon his return.

“I see,” said LeGrand. He thought for a moment, then broke into a broad smile. “You want to see if it’s damaged upon discovery!”

“Quite so,” said Nordhausen.

“So, that’s what this is all about. The courier didn’t have any details, just a watch order. Still, it seems that the Order is now as interested in the condition of this stone as you two seem to be. I can’t imagine why, but what’s good for the Founders sits well with me.” He dipped his head in a bow and smiled again. “I am at your service then: Jean LeGrand, First Able Sergeant of the Milieu, Order of the Temporal Knights. How may I assist you?”

“We need to observe the discovery, of course,” said Maeve. “And we want to be as inconspicuous as possible. You say you’ve witnessed this event before?”

“Twice.”

“Well man—was it damaged?” Nordhausen was eager for all the information he could get.

“Not that I could tell. No, the discovery went off without any hitch that I could discern. Captain Bouchard is already at the Fort. He’ll be directing the improvements to the west wall tomorrow—that’s where they find it, embedded in the wall of Fort Julien.”

“You can take us there?”

“Of course. It’s just to the north a tad, at the edge of the plantation country, on the west bank of the Nile. We’ll use the carriage. The two of you can sit inside and I’ll lead it right past the dig site at precisely the moment the stone is uncovered. We’ll have a perfect vantage point.”

“Excellent,” Robert rubbed his palms together.

“If I may ask,” LeGrand put in. “What kind of damage are you talking about? Was the stone defaced?”

“Oh nothing as simple as that. It was broken clean across the top when I observed it at the London Museum. All the hieroglyphics were gone, and the curator of antiquities there claims it was always so.”

That news gave LeGrand a start. “I see,” he mused. “This is more serious than I thought. What do you hope to determine here?”

“The time of the damage, for one thing,” said Robert. “If it’s intact when they dig it up tomorrow, it will mean that the damage was incurred somewhere forward of this point on the continuum.”

“Obviously,” said LeGrand.

“I know it’s not much, but it is at least a starting point. We’re fairly hopeful that it will be uncovered intact.”

“Yes, if it was damaged somehow, that narrows down the window of opportunity to just a few years before it reaches London in 1802.”

“Better than that,” said Nordhausen. “The stone was taken to the National Institute in Cairo soon after it’s discovery. My research indicates that Napoleon ordered an inscription made of the writing. Two prominent lithographers were called from France. They’re going to ink the stone and roll paper over it to get a good image of the text. The damage must occur before that is accomplished.”

“I see, then that compresses the affair to just a few months. Very clever! Napoleon won’t bother to pay any attention to it in the next week or so. He’s busy planning his battle with the Turks at Aboukir Bay.”

“That means the time of greatest vulnerability will be the journey from the discovery site to Cairo.”

“Quite so,” LeGrand concurred. “If I were planning something, that’s when I would strike. All the French troops in the area will be converging here, their minds set on the Turks. Let me think… Yes. If I were going to make a move on the stone I would probably arrange an ambush along the road—and considerably south of here so as to forestall any interference by the French.”

“How long is the journey to Cairo likely to take?” asked Nordhausen.

“I’m not exactly certain,” said LeGrand. “I’m here for the discovery, but then I take up with the Engineers as they make ready to join Napoleon’s attack at Aboukir Bay. I usually go on to the battle, but not this time. The watch order didn’t give me any specific instruction but, given this news, I’m afraid I have to stay with the stone. Problem is, the damn thing just lays around here for a good long while before they get round to moving it. Now I’ll have to come up with some plan to account for my necessary interest in the artifact for what may turn out to be a very long month. Too bad you can’t stay to keep me some company.”

“You realize that this situation is likely to be dangerous now,” said Maeve.

“Dangerous? My lady, everything I do here is dangerous. I have to watch things like an owl, being constantly vigilant while also remaining discreetly uninvolved, as much as possible.

“Take those two French soldiers this morning. They were supposed to carry a message to the commander of the garrison at Aboukir Castle. Then I get word to put a watch on the road west of town. Incursion watch! That’s what we call it when someone initiates a breaching point on the continuum in the area. We look for the telltale signs—white haze, extreme cold, and that wonderful aurora that settles around you as you manifest. Well, as far as I could tell, the road was clear of traffic in the pre-dawn hours. Then I learned that this message was being sent, and so I found out who was going and claimed that I had lost track of some associates. I tagged along and, voilá! There you were. I handled the incident quite adroitly, wouldn’t you say? ”

“To be sure,” said Maeve. “You made your rendezvous with us and managed to send the two soldiers on their way to avoid any contamination.”

“Exactly!” LeGrand beamed with satisfaction. “The trick was in figuring how to prevent any interaction between the two of you and the soldiers. I had to find you before they did, and make sure your arrival did not deter them from their courier assignment in any way.”

“Well, you’ve made a fine resolution of that one, and here we are.” Maeve set down her teacup, a pensive expression on her face. “But I have a question,” she said. “Just who would be trying to damage the stone, in your opinion, and why?”

“Our enemies, of course.”

“Enemies? Who exactly are they?”

“Well,” said LeGrand, “that’s quite a long story. As to who, radical Islam has been most inconvenient for us over the last several decades. There have been a hundred nefarious groups that have sprung up over the years, but the heart of the nest is the Ismaili Cult of Assassins. As to why, I suppose you and professor Nordhausen have as much of a clue as I do. These people will simply not stop interfering. They won’t be satisfied until the whole of the world supplicates itself to the will of Allah. Their religion is infused with bad politics, and it’s becoming insufferable—nothing more than a thin veil of hypocrisy for their devious political aims. Do you know that Mohammed was the only major religious figure who was also a warrior?”

“I see,” said Maeve, somewhat unconvinced. “Religion is like that sometimes… the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Hundred Years War, Protestants and Catholics at each other’s throats, popes paying huge bribes to Venetian merchants to have crusading armies delivered to targets of opportunity. You know the routine well enough, I suppose—’Soldiers of Christ,’ out to secure lands and fortunes for the Vicar. When it comes to hypocrisy, there seems to be plenty left over for the Christians.”

“Yes, well at least we had the good sense to work most of that out during the Middle Ages,” said LeGrand.

“Quite so,” Maeve returned. “Now it’s politics and economics to keep things interesting. Take this little adventure by Napoleon…” She gestured broadly to the unseen world outside the walls of the roadside inn. “It’s politically motivated, to be sure, but I wonder what the reaction would be in Paris if thirty thousand Turks suddenly landed in Marseilles?”

“Oh, they’ve tried, but Charles Martel put an end to Moslem expansion in Europe at the battle of Tours in 732.”

“True,” said Maeve. “And ever since then it seems the West has been on the offensive. Recent history would argue that you’ve got it all wrong, Doctor. The West has been sticking its thumb in the Islamic pie for the last few centuries—not the other way around.”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” LeGrand set down his cup, crossing his arms. “It really does come down to a clash of cultures when you get to the root of it all. The Islamic world is still centuries behind the West in terms of its social systems and politics.”

“And so your Order is helping them along?” Maeve had that look in her eye that Robert knew all too well. He gave LeGrand a sideward glance, wondering if he knew what he was in for, and smiling uncomfortably.

“Helping them is perhaps not the right way to think of it,” said LeGrand. “After Palma, the proverbial gloves have come off, Miss Lindford. Think of it like your 9/11 event in New York. That certainly catalyzed the American government. ”

“With disastrous consequences,” Maeve put in quickly. “Don’t you think all that trouble in Iraq had something to do with the plans made by this Husan al Din?”

“It probably spawned a hundred such plans, many you have yet to live through, I’m afraid. The worst was Palma, but we fixed that.”

“And it undoubtedly created a few more problems at the same time,” said Maeve.

LeGrand did not answer immediately, a troubled expression on his face. “If you must know, things have taken a turn for the worse in recent years. They’ve discovered how to travel in time as well.”

“Yes, we know, and now they have a mind to meddle in your affairs, just as you seem set on meddling in theirs.”

“That’s about the size of it. A bothersome lot, these Arabs. The Turks weren’t nearly so bad. Oh, I suppose it wouldn’t matter if they were all living in Africa or huddled on some island continent like Australia. But the simple fact of the matter is that the whole of the Islamic Crescent sits atop 90% of the world’s oil and gas.”

“How inconvenient,” said Maeve.

“To be sure, madam. The West needs that oil throughout the twenty-first century… until alternative energy sources can be properly developed.”

“Rubbish,” said Maeve. “We have the ability to develop and deploy hydrogen based fuel systems even in my day. The only reason we don’t is the enormous profit involved in the sale of a diminishing resource like oil.”

“True,” said LeGrand. “No argument here. Still, facts are facts. Whether the West needs the oil or not, the powers that be have decided they need it, and that makes for some particularly troublesome times in the storied conflict of Western nations with the Islamic world. It starts with freedom fighters in Afghanistan and becomes airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, and worse…” He seemed to catch himself, realizing he might reveal the course of future events to these people, and somehow alter them. “Well we all know how it ends, don’t we? It ends with Palma. After that, we simply decided we had to put stop to it, once and for all.”

“Oh, that much is obvious,” said Maeve. “Let’s call it what it is Doctor, war.”

“They call it that.” LeGrand came back at her quickly. “I believe the word is Jihad.”

“Nonsense,” said Maeve, folding her arms abruptly—a very bad sign as far as Nordhausen was concerned. The conversation was becoming more and more heated, and he was considering what he might say to cool tempers down.

Maeve started in again: “It’s true that the Islamic world is far behind the West in terms of social equity and justice. But it is equally true that Western powers have never really had any noble interest in dealing with that. They’re motivated by political and economic reasons—like this expedition by Napoleon. He wanted to campaign through the Middle East to isolate Britain from her colony in India.”

“And he disarmed the peasant rabble,” LeGrand cut in. “He broke the back of the Mamluk hegemony, established new political systems, built hospitals to curb disease—”

“Carried in the plague,” Maeve raised her chin, unwilling to allow her host to serve these facts unchallenged. “He massacred hundreds of prisoners in Palestine, put down the Cairo insurrection with ritual beheadings, then tried to cart off virtually anything he could find of interest. Thankfully, he loses. The British win and so they decide set up shop in Egypt until well into the twentieth century. Got to keep a close eye on Suez, you see.”

“Well,” said LeGrand, a bit disconcerted. “It’s been my experience that the British usually leave things better off than they find them.”

“Chin, chin old boy,” Maeve winked at him, unyielding. “Yes, when the natives get restless there was always the Martini & Henry rifle and a bayonet to set things right. England created the situation that led to unrest and division in the Middle East for decades. The Sykes-Picot agreement just drew arbitrary lines in the sand here after the First World War, irrespective of cultural and ethnic differences. It created pacific little countries like Iraq, a gross conglomerate of Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and Turkomen tribes, and all the misery that has resulted. Then, seeing the mess they’d made, Britain calmly withdrew ‘East of Suez’ and left it all to their new friend to sort out—the good old U.S.A. Now, don’t get me started on how that turned out.”

“Oh, I know exactly how it turns out, madam. You forget, it’s all history to me.”

“Spare me the details,” said Maeve, realizing she could not fight in that corner. “I can see where it’s heading quite well, thank you.”

“Come, come,” said LeGrand, trying to diffuse the situation. “If I didn’t know better I would have to ask myself who’s side you are on here.”

Maeve fixed him with a riveting stare, but LeGrand met her gaze with heavy lids, a look of suspicion settling into his fleshy features.

“Well, Doctor,” she said with an air of finality. “You didn’t invite us to tea to quibble over politics. Suppose you tell us what your real mission is here, and why you were warned to be on the lookout for two Americans on the road west of the city? Be quick about it, sir. The morning is wearing thin.”

17

Le Grand seemed taken aback by Maeve’s remark. The fire in her eyes seemed to surprise him, and he took a guarded posture, eying Nordhausen as though to see where he came down in the argument that had been unfolding. “Madame,” he said at last, “you make it sound as though there is some nefarious plot in the works.”

“You said it yourself, Doctor,” Maeve went on. “You received a message telling you to be on the lookout for two Americans on the road. You were kind enough to return my purse, but you, and your people, have had a good long look at my notes in the bargain, and this Order you speak of certainly knew what we were about here.”

“That you were about here,” LeGrand corrected. “Yes, we knew that much. The Touchstone database also indicated that there was a variation concerning the Rosetta stone as well. To put it bluntly, it was lost, as far as history was concerned. It’s significance as a key to the hieroglyphics was completely undone. We assumed you were interested, even as we were, but we did not know why.”

The ire in Maeve’s eye had not diminished. “Really? Even with a century or more to think it over? Don’t be coy, Doctor. From your perspective in the future this Order of the Temporal Knights knows very well what we are about—and why. If you will not at least grant me the courtesy of honesty, then I’m afraid I will have to insist that we leave here at once. We’ll find our way to the discovery site on our own.”

“Now, Maeve…” Robert touched her shoulder.

“Be quiet, Robert.” The tone of her voice made it quite plain that she was in no mood for compromise.

LeGrand squinted and pursed his lips, deciding. “Very well,” he said. “I forget who I’m dealing with: Maeve Lindford, head of Outcomes & Consequences, and the bane of research for…” he caught himself briefly, “an eternity,” he concluded.

“And what outcome will we have here, Doctor?” Maeve waited, chin up, eyes unyielding.

“Yes,” LeGrand said slowly. “We knew you were coming. We’ve had time enough to determine that much. The clues in that purse you dropped made the research easy. And I must warn you, Madam—warn you both.” He looked at Nordhausen as well. “They know you are here as well—the other side. You know who they are. Your friend, Mr. Dorland, made their acquaintance in Castle Massiaf. What a stroke of luck that was—a perfect example of his Pushpoint theory. Oh, Research predicted that you would try and retrieve your Ammonite fossil, Professor. Still, that little affair in Wadi Rumm was quite interesting. It’s amazing that you stumbled on the well like that.”

“You mean to say you knew about the well all along?”

“Quite the opposite,” said LeGrand. “We knew nothing at all. They set the Oklo reaction up with great secrecy, and used it sparingly so as not to reveal its location to our sensors. You see, Time war is a rather delicate business. You don’t fight any battles. There are no sweeping maneuvers and heavy blows against the enemy. It’s all subtlety, subterfuge, misdirection. It’s the little things that count, after all, the Pushpoints. So you can imagine our concern when we got a variation alert just as you were trying to slip out of Jordan for your surreptitious rendezvous with the Arabesque.”

“You knew about that?” Nordhausen seemed a bit flustered. “But I took the greatest care to conceal my plans. Why, not even Paul knew what I was up to until I had him in the helo over Wadi Rumm! How did you learn about the ship?”

“That’s irrelevant,” LeGrand waved him off. “The point is, we were caught off guard by a hidden Pushpoint at the edge of that well. When Mr. Dorland stumbled in the dark, and took his fall, it set off quite a stir back in operations. We had a mission into the very same milieu where he manifested—a rather delicate mission—and he upset the proverbial apple cart with his arrival at Castle Massiaf.”

Maeve smiled. “Let me guess,” she said with a slight edge of sarcasm. “The Horns of Hattin…”

LeGrand gave her a penetrating look. “Indeed, Madam. Do you think we would allow something like that to stand if we could prevent it? The entire Christian army was slaughtered. A hundred Templars were lined up and beheaded, one by one, with that Moslem flair for the dramatic.”

“The hostage executions were all over the Internet during the second war in Iraq,” said Maeve.

“Then you can understand our motives easily enough. The battle of Hattin set back Christian plans in the Middle East for generations. It undid ninety years of painful consolidation in the kingdom of Outrémere, and caused a great deal of misery and suffering for decades thereafter.”

“Yes,” said Maeve. “The third Crusade was the answer, but Richard The Lion Heart failed to deliver Jerusalem and met an unseemly end in a German prison. The Fourth Crusade gets diverted to Constantinople by greedy Venetian Merchants. Lots of pain and suffering there, I suppose.”

“We had our reasons,” said LeGrand, then caught himself, realizing that he had said a bit too much. “But in the matter of Mr. Dorland’s visit to Massiaf, we could not quite figure out if you were running a deliberate mission or if it was mere happenstance.”

“Yes,” said Maeve, “there are always reasons…” she let the phrase dangle, looking LeGrand square in the eye. “Tell me, Doctor. Were you trying to kill Reginald?”

LeGrand jumped at the accusation, then narrowed his gaze, somewhat determined. “That would be quite unseemly,” he said. “Did we want him dead? Certainly. Did we think we could be so bold as to… assassinate him? Absolutely not. There are rules in the game, my dear. Violations are severe. Reginald was a Prime, as you well know. Without his headstrong influence, poor Guy never takes the crown from Baldwin’s daughter. Without his lust for vengeance and his greed, Saladin is never provoked to muster the Moslem armies. Without his brazen insults and bullying ways, the Christian army never sorties out to confront Saladin at Hattin, and things turn out… quite differently.”

“I can imagine,” said Maeve. “So what were you up to, Doctor? And how did we upset your little scheme?”

“We let it be someone else’s little scheme,” said LeGrand. “We were trying to arrange it so they killed Reginald. After all—the word assassin dates from that very milieu. There were experts in the mountains of Syria who could do the job well enough. All we had to do was make certain Reginald gave them sufficient reason. Our adversaries were not sleeping, however. They must have been on to us—or so we thought. It took us some time before we realized they were running couriers into Massiaf to their agent in place at that location.”

“Sinan,” said Maeve, matter of factly.”

“Quite so,” said LeGrand. “You really are very good, Madame. Reading about you is one thing, but seeing you work this out with that steely resolve of yours is quite another. Touché!”

“Spare me the flattery,” Maeve put in.

Nordhausen was following along as best he could, but he had a puzzled expression on his face. “See here,” he began: “Then this Sinan, the one the Crusaders feared as the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’, was indeed an agent from the future?”

“Of course,” said LeGrand. “He was a perfect little Osama Bin Ladin for that milieu. He found a disaffected cult—just another of the many branches on the tree of Islam, and he managed to nurture and prune it until he had his crop of Assassins. They became a perfect instrument for the radicals for the next 200 years—until we put the Mongols on to them. In the meantime, Sinan poses quite a challenge for us.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Nordhausen. “If he was as skilled an adversary as you indicate, then why would he allow himself to be duped into taking the life of a Prime Mover?”

“Every barrel of fruit has a few bad apples,” said LeGrand. “Men are petty, they have pride, desire, odd motives that can be played upon by one who knows the span of their entire life. Sinan was not our target. We knew there were others in the Ismaili cult who could not abide a man like Reginald. We tried to get rid of Reginald ourselves, but to no avail. We urged him to conduct his little known raid by sea along the coast of Arabia, hoping to leave him hopelessly stranded there, but then, by some miracle, he escaped. We made sure he was restored to Castle Kerak on the southern border near the great Islamic trade route into Egypt, and then we whispered of the Sultan’s caravans, fat with gold, and spice and silk.”

“And it almost worked,” said Maeve.

“Almost.” LeGrand looked at her suspiciously. “Mr. Dorland’s fall into the Well of Souls undid our plan at the last moment. The man we were hoping to influence within the Ismaili cult failed to act. We aren’t exactly sure what Mr. Dorland did, or how he did it, but the assassination plot against Reginald was foiled. In fact, he managed to get the Assassins in Massiaf at each other’s throats! Quite effective for an agent saboteur! Well, we should have expected nothing less. After all, we relied on you people for the Palma reversal, so it should be no surprise to us that you find ways of… accomplishing things with great success. After all,” he smiled wanly, “you are the Founders.”

“Yes,” said Maeve quietly. “And if I read you, Doctor, and I read very well, I would say you are not at all happy with our accomplishments.”

LeGrand sighed heavily. “Well, there it is,” he said. “We want things our way—you want them yours.”

“And the Assassins want them another way,” Maeve finished.

“Yes,” said LeGrand quickly. “We’ve seen the world they want. We’ve lived in it. Believe me, madam, you would understand our motives quite well after a year or two in the Chador. I don’t think a woman of great spirit, such as yourself, would abide Islamic Sharia very long without going quite insane. Is that what you want?”

“It’s not what I want that matters here, Doctor,” said Maeve. “It’s what you want that I’m concerned about now.”

“Me? You mean the Order? Why, we want the world we fought for, died for by the thousands. We want the destiny that Christendom so richly deserves, along with the spread of freedom and democracy, in a world where individual rights are respected, and the dignity of women is upheld.”

“Doctor LeGrand,” said Maeve, “just a moment ago you were telling me how inconvenient it was that a billion Muslims were sitting on all that petroleum. You were lamenting that things might have been better if they were all shunted away on some island, safely out of the way. I must say, other men have gone about with the words freedom, equality and fraternity on their lips, and spread more misery across the globe than all the so called terrorists that ever lived. Take your friend, Napoleon, as a perfect example.” She folded her arms, her point well made.

“I can see that this is leading us nowhere,” LeGrand sighed. “Well, it hardly matters. You’re here for the discovery, and so am I. My offer to lead you to the site still stands, if you can abide my company.” He looked askance at Maeve, a wounded look on his face.

“Just a moment,” Nordhausen spoke up. “If you two are done with politics I should like to have some answers myself. You say your computers indicated a variation for this milieu.”

“Of course,” said LeGrand. “The Ismaili Assassins are up to no good again. It has something to do with the stone, and the hieroglyphics. Who knows?”

“Then you believe they are responsible for the damage to the stone?”

“Who else?” LeGrand opened his palms, his jovial eyes reflecting the sincerity of his conclusion.

“But why, Doctor, have you reasoned that?”

“Why? That’s is not my charge. I’m an agent in place. It’s my job to observe, report, and execute specific instructions. Let Research and Outcomes quarrel over the rest.”

Nordhausen thought for a moment. “And how do you receive your instructions?”

“What? Oh, by special courier. We’ve learned that’s the only safe way to transmit orders. Just a little Spook Job, you see. All the agents have rounds to make, and places to be on particular days. We plan things very well. This entire week I was to be billeted here at the inn, during the run up to the discovery of the stone. The Order knew my whereabouts and sent someone through with a message last night. It’s really quite simple—in and out, a cool minute in eternity. We’ve perfected the technique quite well: Delphi and the oracle, the burning bush that spoke to Moses in the desert, the sudden appearance of apparitions. It’s really great fun.”

“I see,” said Nordhausen. “Well it may please you to know that I think I ran into a messenger from the other side during my stay in Wadi Rumm.”

“Oh?” LeGrand perked up, suddenly interested. “Do go on, Professor.”

Robert looked at Maeve, but hearing no immediate protest he began to explain. “He called himself Rasil, the Messenger, and claimed he was to use the Well of Souls to reach Castle Massif with certain instructions. I didn’t know his destination at the time. That was not confirmed until Kelly and Maeve ran down the vectors and pulled Paul out. But the curious thing about this is—”

“That will be quite enough, Robert.” Maeve had heard a little more than she was comfortable with.

LeGrand looked surprised. “What? I was quite forthcoming with both of you. We’re in a Nexus. Please, rest assured.”

“I’m afraid not.” Maeve folded her arms, shaking her head in the contrary.

“But madam, please. I can assure you that—”

“You have assured me of one thing already, Doctor,” said Maeve. “And that is this: until I have time to reflect on this matter further, I must consider you, and your Order, to be the gravest possible threat to the integrity of the continuum, and I will do everything in my power to see that your tampering is put to an end.”

18

Maeve’s pronouncement fell like a stone in the pool of silence that now filled the room. The ripples played over the expression of both Nordhausen and LeGrand, who looked at each other, and then back at her.

“Come, Robert. I think it’s time we leave.”

“Now, Maeve,” Robert began, but Maeve answered by getting up and striding to the door, obviously intent on vacating the premises at once, with or without her friend. Robert gaped at her as she went out the door, then turned briefly to LeGrand and stood up quickly to follow.

“I’m very sorry,” he tried to apologize.

“This is most irregular,” said LeGrand, a look of amazement on his face. “What about the discovery? I’ve made all the arrangements. And where will you sleep? Doesn’t that woman realize it’s a dangerous world out there?”

“Only too well, I suppose,” said Nordhausen. “Look, I must get after her, you understand. Please forgive me.” He extended an arm in a quick, apologetic gesture, and set off after Maeve, one hand straightening his wig as he went.

By the time he caught up with her, she was out through the courtyard and exiting the gate to the inn. The sun had climbed high during their conversation, and the mid-day heat was beginning to radiate from the dry landforms about them. A saving breeze was still blowing in off the ocean to the north, but it was going to be very uncomfortable out in the open sun. Maeve had already opened her parasol and was slowing her gait somewhat to let Robert catch up.

“Really,” he said, somewhat out of breath. “Was it necessary to make a scene like that?”

“It was.”

“But I don’t understand—the man was only trying to help us. He had quarters arranged, tea, and no doubt there would have been some breakfast in the bargain as well. He knows exactly where the discovery site is, and now we’ll just have to bungle about on our own because of your stubborn—”

“Leave it, Robert. Either you weren’t listening in there or you have a severe case of time lag. The man is dangerous, don’t you understand?” She kept walking, heading east, in the general direction of the town center. Robert was pulled along with her.

“Dangerous? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you get it? The man is an agent.”

“But he’s merely observing,” Robert explained. “He’s standing a watch on the milieu—”

“And executing instructions he receives by courier. It’s the same scenario Paul stumbled into at Castle Massiaf. You were just about to explain it to him, yes?”

“Well, of course!” Robert did not see the danger that was obviously so apparent to Maeve.

“You were going to tell him about the scroll, the hieroglyphics, everything. In fact, I’ll bet you couldn’t wait to translate the message Rasil was carrying. Didn’t you hear? They were trying to change the outcome of Hattin—by arranging the death of Reginald. I don’t know what Paul did when he was there but, whatever it was, it foiled their plan.”

“Well, you’re acting like he’s our enemy.”

“Robert…” Maeve stopped suddenly, turning to confront him. “Anyone who intends to alter the history we know is our enemy. Get that into your head! We’re here to find out if this stone you prize so highly is damaged or not. You know why, yes? Well, I should know why as well—but I don’t. The Meridian has been altered, and something that was once roosting happily in my head is gone. I wasn’t in a Nexus, like you were, when the transformation occurred, and I’ve lost something—the Rosetta stone, for one thing, and god only knows what else!” Her face reddened as she concluded, her eyes burning with controlled anger.

A look of recognition came over Robert’s face. His eyes softened, losing the frustration that was in them as he chased after her. “Very well,” he said at last. “I understand your concerns now. I can see that this is going to be very difficult—for all of us. Still, we might have learned something more from LeGrand, if you weren’t so headstrong.”

“I’ve learned quite enough,” said Maeve. “He’s an agent; probably involved in all sorts of mischief. He may be here to preserve Napoleon’s life from the assassins, or to tamper with the outcome of his battles—who knows? But I’ll tell you one thing: he’s a liar, and that makes him my enemy, no matter what his pleasantries and feigned hospitality might say to the contrary.”

“A liar? About what?”

“Weren’t you listening? He said Graves discovered Paul’s DVD in the memorial site. Now we both know that the site was tampered with, and the DVD was taken—possibly as an attempt against Kelly’s life. But Kelly’s not gone…” Her lips tightened as she struggled to complete her thought. “He’s still here, or at least I hope he is. He recovered when you and Paul determined to do something about the tampering, and published the backup DVD to the Internet. If that stands, then Graves must have found the DVD by some other means, and LeGrand is lying.”

“Well, he’s been here in Egypt for over a year, Maeve. The tampering just occurred. How would he know about it when he was stuck in Palestine with Napoleon’s army?”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Use your head, man! The tampering occurred in the year 2010, Robert. Remember, he would be privy to any transformation of the Meridian between our lifetime and his. He said it himself—it’s all history to him. He should have known that the site was tampered with, and the DVD was found by other means—yet he feigned ignorance of the whole matter.”

Nordhausen scratched his head. “Good heavens. Now I am confused.”

“Think of it this way,” Maeve explained, “the fact that Kelly remained substantial after the tampering means that something was done to preserve the DVD record—and it was found. LeGrand told us the story he thought we would believe. He’s a liar.”

“I see,” said Robert. “This is becoming more complicated than I imagined. This temporal logic is confounding. How do we know that the whole matter isn’t undone by some other operation—something that prevents the tampering with Kelly’s memorial site, just as we prevented Palma?”

“We don’t know,” said Maeve. “But the facts, as they stand now, reveal LeGrand to be… insincere, to say the least, and devious, to say more. I’ll tell you something else that you might have missed: LeGrand said the perfect time for an operation against the stone would be somewhere on the road between here and Cairo.”

“Well… That seems logical enough.”

“Oh, it would be,” Maeve said quickly. “Only the stone was not transported to Cairo by road. All that talk about the French commandeering the good riding stock was bogus. Do you realize how heavy that thing is? Really, Robert, you should have researched this mission if you were so damn set on it. They moved the stone by river. They barged it up the Nile to Cairo, and so LeGrand was just trying to put us off the scent with his clever little scenario about a roadside ambush.”

Nordhausen scratched his head, amazed that Maeve had been so perceptive. “Well,” he said at last. “I suppose I understand your hostility toward the man now.”

“Right,” Maeve agreed quickly. “We must act as though he were a potential contagion to the Meridian, Robert. He is not our friend. He was sent to intercept us—with foreknowledge of our exact arrival time and location. This Order he speaks of is aware of our operation here, as they are doubtless aware of our intention to prevent their tampering. Again—everything we do is history to them—at least the outcome of our actions. In that case, we become obstacles to their plans as well—Founders and Prime Movers all.”

“You mean to say you think they would conspire against us?”

“Why not? LeGrand has revealed that we have already overturned their assassination plot against Reginald. Lord… we’ve said entirely too much to that man. Telling him that the incident in Wadi Rumm was mere happenstance was not good. Translating the message you read on Rasil’s scroll, as you were about to do, would have been worse. Remember what Paul said about security. We’ve been very sloppy this time—myself included. I was thoughtless in taking that note back in my purse. If you must know, I simply forgot it was there, but that’s no excuse. I practically stripped myself naked the first time I went through the Arch. I was careless, and I put them on to us.”

Nordhausen nodded. “All is forgiven,” he said, then grew very quiet. After a moment he looked at her with a searching expression. “Maeve, can you possibly forgive me for… for what I did in using the Arch? I was on to something—taken up with the hunt, as it were. I wanted to have a look at artifacts, yes, I’ll admit it: I choose London because I have always loved that time. And when I met Wilde and all I…”

“Say no more,” said Maeve. “Alright, I’ll let you off the hook on the condition that you behave yourself for the rest of this mission.” She smiled, and the mood between them lightened.

“We had better get into town and find some new accommodations,” said Robert. “I suppose it may appear somewhat scandalous to some—a strapping man like me alone with a woman in this savage land.”

“Remember,” Maeve corrected him quickly, “I’m your sister.”

~

They walked on, the town growing around them as they made their way past parched fields, once lush plantations in the flood season. The smell of sea salt and brine was in the air, and Nordhausen steered them in the direction of the fort. Before long, however, they were very tired, and surprisingly hungry.

“I simply must get out of this sun and have something to eat,” said Maeve, and Robert concurred.

The activity of traders, farmers and herders was more apparent as they moved into the heart of the settlement. People were hustling along the thin, stone-laid roads, intent on a thousand matters know only to themselves. As Nordhausen looked at them he felt a strange inner twinge of something akin to fear. What if one of these people was musing on something that would end up triggering any of the great events of history waiting to play out?

LeGrand was correct when he said it was the common man, and the triviality of his simple desires, that you really had to look out for. It occurred to him that the greatest part of all human experience was entirely unknown—stuck away in a man’s head as his inner thoughts moved from one tiny necessity to the next. Only the smallest fraction was ever expressed, in conversation with other men, and even less of that was ever written down to be known by future generations.

Yes, he thought, most of human experience was silent, private, confined in the heads of simple men and women, and never revealed. Just as he kept this very muse to himself, so the greatest measure of human thought was entirely unknown—a mystery he could never imagine. What was Maeve thinking at this very moment?

He looked at her, struggling along in that layered costume, parasol held up bravely against the tireless sun. A bit of the mystery was suddenly revealed to him when she took a deep breath and licked her lips.

“Smell that?” There was a palpable aroma of cooking meat on the air, and Robert could see that they were approaching a souk near the center of town.

“Delightful,” he said. “Are you as famished as I am?”

“Yes,” she said, fidgeting about in her purse. “Ah,” she smiled. “At least they had the good manners to leave the contents intact.”

“What do you mean?”

“I scrounged up some old French francs at a dealer’s shop in Berkeley before we left. It’s all here—even the three gold pieces I added, just in case the notes would not be accepted. Why, they’ve even left my note in the purse.”

“With all the details of our mission?”

“Yes. I’ll say one thing for them: they’re tidy. Looks like someone in Outcomes insisted that the purse had to be left exactly as it was, and returned to the proper owner for disposition, as LeGrand called it.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” said Nordhausen. “But let’s see about something to eat!”

Maeve was only too happy to accommodate him. They made their way into a wide open square where many street vendors offered the produce from nearby plantations. Sellers were calling out to catch the attention of passers by, and people crowded about carts and stands, where baskets of melons, dates, and other fruit were offered. But their attention was led by their noses to a man offering slivers of seasoned meat on long wood skewers. He was grilling them over a brazier of charcoal, and the aroma was compelling.

Maeve handed Robert a note, and he angled in to bargain with the man for their lunch. The vendor eyed him suspiciously at first. He accepted the note cautiously, squinting at it in the bright sunlight, and finally smelling it before he flashed them a gritty smile and handed over two skewers of meat. Robert accepted them with a nod, handing them to Maeve, then he waited, eyeing the vendor like he was up to no good.

“Come on, Robert,” said Maeve.

“Why, the beggar hasn’t given me my change yet,” Robert protested. “That was a five frank note, am I right?”

Maeve gave him an incredulous look. “Leave it,” she said, pulling him away. “I’m famished. Let’s get out of this sun and find another inn.”

Robert allowed himself to be pulled along, looking over his shoulder at the vendor as they went. There was no mystery as to what was going on in that man’s head just now—spoken or not. The man had a sly smile on his face, obviously pleased that he had been able to garner such a hefty price for his wares, and all without the slightest bit of haggling.

They finished the food, finding it a spicy, though satisfying meal. People were understandably curious to see these strangers in their midst, and the more they lingered in the souk, the more attention they got. It was making Maeve somewhat nervous, and she pulled Robert along, heading for a group of buildings at one end of the square. Her eye fixed on one that had the look of a caravanserai, and she hastened toward it, glad to be out away from the lingering stares of these earthy, brown skinned locals.

In time they found an inn that looked acceptable, and went in to see about a room. The keeper did not want to accept paper currency, however, and Maeve was forced to pay one of the three gold coins to secure accommodations. Robert seemed irritated as the negotiation was concluded, largely by sign language, as the man did not speak any European language.

“See what I mean?” He nodded his head at the man. “We got taken again. These people are bandits. Five francs for lunch and an ounce of gold for a single night on a dusty hovel like this.”

“It’s not the price I’m concerned about,” said Maeve. “It’s just that I was hoping to use the notes instead of coinage.”

“Well the lout would have probably taken us for the entire wad in that case.” He looked at the man, clearly displeased. “Too much,” he breathed. Then to Maeve he said: “What’s the difference? Gold, notes, he’s a robber either way.”

“The difference is that notes deteriorate quickly, and so I don’t leave detritus in the Meridian very long. A gold coin is another matter. It will hang around for centuries, and it doesn’t belong here any more than we do.”

“May I be of some assistance?”

They were both startled to hear English spoken, though the voice was heavily accented. Robert turned to see a tall Arabic man, dressed in white robes with a lavender hem. He wore a dark headpiece banded by three red stripes, and his eyes were bright and animated, between heavy brows and high cheek bones. His moustache and beard were thick and dark, lending him an air of dignity, and at his throat he wore a three leaf broach of finely worked brass.

“You are English, yes?” the man said. “It is quite unusual to hear English spoken here these days. Are you traders?”

“Not English, Americans,” Nordhausen corrected quickly. “Off the Perla…” He was struggling to remember their cover story, still somewhat flustered that this man would speak their language.

“Ah, yes, she was here but three days ago. A brief visit. I do not think the news of the Pasha’s fleet sat well with her. She left very quickly. But how is it you were not with her?”

“We intended to make a visit here,” said Nordhausen. “Tourists, of a sort, you see.” He hoped no further explanation would be needed, looking askance at Maeve for support. Then he decided to rush the net, and volleyed a question of his own.

“How do you come to speak English? That is somewhat unusual for—”

“For an Arab?” The man smiled, taking no offense. “Yes, it is quite unusual. The English are fighting the French, you see, and the Turks have decided the French are a nuisance. Since the Turks are in bed with the English these days, an Arab who wishes to curry favor with the Turks would be wise to learn a bit of English. I lived in Spain once, and learned many languages: Spanish, Portuguese, English, and even French. They are very similar, though English does have its peculiarities.”

“I see,” said Nordhausen. “Then you are a man of letters?”

“I was fortunate enough to attend the university in Cordoba—a very beautiful place, Cordoba.” His eyes seemed to reach for some distant memory, resolving to a narrow eyed smile. “Then you are not with the savants?”

“Not directly,” said Robert. “We were in Toulon, visiting relatives, and heard of the expedition. Being somewhat of a student of history, I was fascinated by the enterprise. Unfortunately, we could not book passage with the French fleet, but we were lucky enough to catch the Perla there before she left.” The innkeeper was completely forgotten now, and they both were fixated on the strange figure before them.

“Forgive me,” said Robert. “I am…” He suddenly realized that he should not give out his real name, but could not remember anything about the cover he was supposed to assume! “Mr. Underhill,” he blurted out at last, grasping at a straw from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Maeve’s eyes widened at the name and he blushed red, realizing the stupidity of the remark. Yet it was the only thing that came to mind, and so he stuck with it, in spite of Maeve’s withering regard.

“My amiable sister,” he smiled sheepishly as he gestured in her direction.

“Ah, a great pleasure,” said the man. “I am Khalid al Haram. I trade along the caravan routes, and have worked this coast for twenty years. Most of the trade is moving by ship these days, and so a man finds his English useful. The French are masters of the land, but on the sea, it is the British fleet that holds sway, and answers to little else but the wind. They fought the French here earlier, and caught their fleet at anchor. The little general is marooned! He thought to make his way through Palestine and Syria, but the Turks stopped him at Acre, and so he returned here to Egypt to sulk. Now the British fleet is back again, and with the Turkish ships as well. They landed at Aboukir Bay.”

“Yes,” said Nordhausen. “We saw them. It was quite a sight. In fact, we just came in from the road west of town, and were looking for quarters here.”

“You are right about this man,” Khalid, waved disdainfully at the innkeeper. “He is greedy at heart. The French have paid him a hundred times with notes, and he has never raised a stir with them. If you like I will chide him, and demand the return of your gold. It is unseemly that guests should be treated in this manner.”

“Well… ah…” Robert looked at Maeve, wanting to defer the matter to her, but he realized that he was the man here and, to an Arab, a woman would certainly not be one to make such a decision. Maeve remained discretely silent, intuitively embracing the notion that she should be seen, but not heard, as much as it went against the grain of her nature.

“Leave it be,” said Nordhausen. “We have no complaint. The man is entitled to a windfall now and then, and we can afford to be generous.”

“If it were me, I would have him thrashed until he offered the room as a compliment, but as you wish.”  Khalid smiled, then changed the subject. “Forgive me for intruding, but I overheard your transaction. It seems you have been billeted to the room next to mine. I would be most happy to escort you, and show the way.” He gestured to the back hall, where two French soldiers had just emerged. They were looking strangely at Robert and Maeve, and Khalid seemed to quickly warm to the role of host, going so far as to take the professor by the elbow, leaning in as he spoke.

“This way,” and he said it in French, going on to describe the food that would be served at the dinner hour, and adding a bit at the end about the problem of trade in time of war. Robert did not get all of it, somewhat surprised by the switch in languages, but he gathered enough to realize that this man had just deflected the undue interest of the soldiers, who went about their business after hearing their conversation, and left the inn.

Maeve could not help but notice the easy tact of the man, and the casual manner in which he maneuvered them safely away. Still, she thought it quite odd that they would happen upon this fellow, an educated man in the midst of this dry and dusty trading port.

They went down a dimly lit hall, and Khalid gestured to a plain door at the far end. “Your quarters are here,” he said. “If I may?” He entered and looked about him suspiciously, checking this way and that to be certain the room was vacant. “I’m afraid the previous guests did not leave the room in a tidy condition. I will have my manservant visit you later to sweep the floors. Alas for me, I must wait here until this unfortunate business at Aboukir Bay is resolved. There will be a battle, of course.”

“I fear you are correct,” said Nordhausen.

“It is very inconvenient,” said Khalid. “I had several business matters pending, and now I must wait to see who will prevail. The buyers will want to know whether they can still accept French currency, you see. I suppose that is why the innkeeper was so difficult with you.”

“Yes, I understand.” Nordhausen scratched his head as they stepped into the room behind Khalid.

“If Napoleon wins they will continue to accept French bills with no qualms. Who do you think will prevail?”

“Why, I wouldn’t know the first thing about it,” Robert explained. “I am not versed in military matters, but if history serves as any guide, the French have had their way here for the last year or so.”

“Indeed, they have. The Pasha is come to correct that matter. He has, by some accounts, twenty thousand men crowded on the beaches at Aboukir Bay. Why he lingers there is hard to say. Perhaps he cannot make up his mind whether to strike at Alexandria or to march here to Rashid. I suppose he is being overly cautious until he can learn what the French might do.”

Nordhausen saw an angle in the conversation that could help their investigation. “I have heard that the French are working on the fortifications in the area.”

“That they are,” said Khalid. “A company of soldiers arrived here last week. They will be digging out the walls tomorrow, clearing away some of the old stone so they can extend the rampart.”

“What a shame,” said Robert, shaking his head. “Some of the stonework here dates back centuries. I would hate to see it damaged by these petty quarrels.”

Khalid looked at him, coming to some quiet inner conclusion. “Then you have an interest in the stonework?”

“A passing interest,” said Nordhausen. “I find it remarkable that all this history and culture has been baking away in the sun here, largely unknown to the rest of the world.”

“Egypt is a mystery, to be sure—even to the Arabs who have lived here for generations. The pyramids sit in stubborn silence. What they have seen; what they have heard, they will not tell.” Khalid gestured at unseen artifacts beyond the walls. “Have you seen the ancient writing inscribed on the stonework here? It is a mystery within a mystery—wholly confounding, even to the learned. But the monuments within easy reach of the delta are nothing. You should see the tombs of Luxor and Karnak!”

“I haven’t had time to see much more than this roadside inn and the local souk,” said Robert with a smile. “But perhaps tomorrow—when the French dig out their walls. Perhaps then I might get a look at some of the old stones rumored to lie at the foundation of the fortifications here.”

“Oh? But this is not an ancient fort,” said Khalid. It is Borg Rashid, the tower of Rosetta, an old fortress to be sure, but one built in the fifteenth century by the sultan Qa’it Bey. The French renamed it after one of Napoleon’s aides-de-camp, and so, for the moment, it is called Fort Julien. The man was killed here, along with his escort, not but a year ago. In ancient times, however, this area was covered by the sea.”

“I see,” said Nordhausen. “But undoubtedly the sultan got his stone from some location near by. It is speculated that the stonework may have come from ancient temples.”

“Perhaps,” said Khalid. “I see you have an interest in these things. Would you like to go to the fort tomorrow and see for yourself?”

Robert tried to hide his excitement. “That would be quite interesting,” he said. “What do you think, my dear?” He looked at Maeve, who was quietly fanning herself as she listened to the conversation between the two men. She smiled, nodding in the affirmative.

“Then I will take you!” Khalid beamed, stroking his beard. “There is still a small Mosque at the center of the fortifications. The French will no doubt desecrate it with the business of war, but it is still there. I must meet someone there in the morning and, if you will be so kind as to accompany me, perhaps you can get a look at the foundations of the walls. I will call on you with the new sun. Until then,” he bowed, “I am very pleased to meet you… Mr. Underhill.” He said the name slowly, as if struggling to remember it, then made a gracious bow and left.

Nordhausen waited until the man was gone before he spoke. “What do you make of that?”

“Very unusual,” Maeve said quietly.

“You believe his story?”

“Not a word.”

“What? Then you think he’s—”

“Oh, he’s a clever one, that’s for sure, but he’s not who he seems.”

“Who then?”

“You tell me,” Maeve folded her arms. “This was all too convenient. Either he’s part and parcel with LeGrand, or he’s working for the other side—one of those Assassins Paul stumbled on. But he’s certainly not the humble and amiable trader he claims to be.”

“Good lord. Do you think the Assassins could be privy to our mission here as well?”

“Anything is possible,” Maeve concluded. “We would be foolish not to assume as much. It seems we’ve got a date with this man for the discovery tomorrow. I wonder if he’s here for the same reason we are: to keep watch on the stone.”

“Yes,” said Nordhausen, “and don’t forget LeGrand. He’ll be there as well. It should give us an opportunity to watch the two of them. Could make for some interesting chemistry if they are both agents in this Time war nonsense.”

“You have a knack for understatement,” said Maeve. “Well, we may as well rest here for the heat of the day. But lock the door. I don’t trust either of these men—LeGrand and Khalid alike.”

Part VII

Discovery

“Then I felt like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like the stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men

Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”

—Keats: Sonnet: On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer

19

The morning sun was already promising cruel heat as the last of the wagons pulled into the work area. All about the walls of Ft. Julien the labor party of local peasants worked to remove the hard, sun-baked stone that jutted from the base of the aging rampart. A French officer of engineers stood watching as three men strained against a long iron bar wedged in the rock. From the early hours of the morning, the men had been clearing the base of the wall, hauling the smaller stone away to be mortared on to the higher sections above.

There was an urgency and sense of haste in their movements. A large Turkish force had landed at Aboukir bay, days ago, and quickly overcome the French garrison there. Now the threat to both Alexandria and Rosetta was quite real. At Rosetta, the French found the ruined walls of an old fort, eighty meters on a side. The wall towers had four movable turrets for the mounting of artillery, but the French officers quickly noted that they would not be fit to mount even one of their smaller guns, an eight-pound cannon. The crenellations on the ramparts connecting the turrets were in decay, and the tower keep at the centre of the fortress still harbored a small mosque.

Living quarters, a hospital, ovens, guard units and ammunition dumps were quickly established at the site by a battalion of engineers. They were ably assisted by a dedicated Lieutenant, one Pierre François Xavier Bouchard, and Robert spied him at once as he turned to squint at the labor detail.

Bouchard was a tall man, still young at the age of twenty-eight, and well suited to the task. He had first come to Egypt, not as a soldier, but as one of the many savants that had accompanied the expedition. With an interest in the ancient carvings and archeology, Bouchard realized he might best serve his own curiosity, along with the French interests, by joining the corps of engineers. He had only lately been assigned to the Rosetta work detail, and now, Robert knew, he was about to make the single most important discovery of his life—The Rosetta Stone; it was lying somewhere in the dry, cracked soil of the embankment at the base of the wall, waiting to emerge from centuries of silence and darkness, and enlighten the whole Western understanding of the ancient Egyptian culture. It was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphics, for it would bear a message in each of three languages, and serve as a primer for scholars in decades to come.

Nordhausen watched the men work, a feeling of rising excitement and anxiety in his chest. Now they were struggling to pry loose a particularly stubborn rock that was wedged into the supporting foundation of the wall. The officer, Bouchard, gestured to two other men, indicating that they should lend their weight to the lever and, even as they rushed forward to the task, LeGrand appeared in a billow of dust, riding in on the same covered coach that Robert and Maeve had arrived in the previous day.

The two travelers had come to the scene an hour earlier, escorted by their guide, Khalid. He was especially gracious, bringing them cool water and a plate of sweetened bread and dates when he arrived at their room that morning. They ate, and then were eager to reach the site of the impending discovery, though they did not share their real intent with their host. Nordhausen carried on about his interest in the old Egyptian carvings in the region, and Khalid was only too happy to banter with him about the improvements the Arabs had made to the architecture in centuries past.

Now they were standing in the lee of a high tower on the wall, watching with keen interest as the work parties cleared the rubble away by slow, tedious labor.

Though Maeve wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible, it was hard for the other Westerners at the scene not to notice them. A few French infantry were eyeing her from a distance, though Khalid played his role of the cordial host well, and made it seem that he was entertaining guests, or trading partners in some long planned exchange of commerce. It was a ruse that seemed to be working, for no one bothered them until LeGrand arrived in his coach and fixed his grey eyes upon them with a squint of suspicion.

Khalid was quick to notice. He turned to Robert and leaned in close, as Arabs are accustomed, as if confiding some intensely personal matter.

“He is here.”

“I beg your pardon?” Robert was not quite in tune.

“You know the man of whom I speak. The grey one in the coach, near the gate by the west wall. You must be very cautious now, my friends. This man is dangerous.”

“You know him?” Robert expressed his natural curiosity, hoping to ferret out the relationship between the two that he was already suspicious of himself.

“Let us say that I have had dealings with the man. He is not to be trusted.”

“Ah… Then he is another trader?” There was something in Robert’s voice that was not lost on his host. Khalid smiled, his dark eyes narrowing under their heavy brows.

“He trades in things that most men would be wise to leave in peace,” said Khalid. “But, then again, the commerce of the hour brings us all here to some end or another, does it not?”

Robert nodded agreeably, though the insinuation was not lost on Maeve, who regarded the Arab with a knowing gaze. She was keen to observe the obvious tension in the man’s face and deportment now that LeGrand had arrived. The interloper was down from his coach and making his way boldly across the courtyard, intent on trio by the tower.

“Bonjour, Madame,” LeGrand said politely, bowing as he stepped into the shade of the tower. “Monsieur.” He said to Nordhausen, and then proffered a wan smile in Khalid’s direction, nodding his head in a mock bow.

Khalid touched his heart with his hand, and made a shallow head bow in return. “You are very punctual, LeGrand,” he said in English, with just a hint of annoyance.

“Oh?” said LeGrand. “And just what brings you into the company of these good people, Sheik? Are you working some trade for the Sultan?”

“The Sultan? His army is very close at hand, but I do not think he has trade on his mind. The Pasha is here to throw out the French, as you well know.” He lowered his voice, covering the remark with a strained smile.

“Not something you want to lord on about,” said LeGrand. “Particularly in English—not with the British fleet about in these waters. Rumor has it that the French are becoming more and more suspicious of local traders. Information passes in whispers, even as coinage moves from one purse to another. They wonder how Nelson and his fleet managed to make such a good accounting of the French Army’s movements when they were in Palestine.”

“Do they?” Khalid was still smiling, though his eyes were smoldering with restrained hostility. “They are a curious lot, are they not?”

“Curious, indeed,” LeGrand returned. “As you seem to be. Pray tell me, what business do you have here today? Are you hoping to win a contract for the repair of these walls?” He gestured at the tawny fortifications.

“Nothing so enterprising,” said Khalid. “I was merely extending the hospitality of my people to these strangers, and seeing to their comfort. The professor here has an interest in ancient stone carvings, and I thought we might tour the fortifications.”

“Ah,” said LeGrand. “Good day, professor. Ready for the revelation?” he rubbed his palms together. “In spite of what my friend says, I think we can all safely acknowledge why we are here, yes? Now then…” he squinted at the sun. “You may wish to move this way in a moment.” LeGrand gestured to his right, where a low pile of loosened stone provided them a slight rise in elevation and a better view of the digging party. The low baritone of the French officer of engineers could be heard, exhorting the laborers to strain a bit harder at the iron lever they had wedged into the base of the large, half-exposed rock they were working.

“Come, professor, Madame… It is almost time.” There was just a trace of urgency in LeGrand’s voice, and Maeve could see that Khalid had been edging closer to the work crews, trying to appear uninterested, but keenly aware of their steady progress.

Robert turned, and then heard a loud chink as the iron lever slipped. A hard crack followed, and the large rock fell suddenly away from the base of the wall in a cloud of silt and dust. LeGrand rocked on his heels, a smile of anticipation on his face. There was an audible gasp as the dust settled around a dark squarish shape that had been exposed in the side of the wall. The officer had immediately taken note of it, and was leaning in, intent on some discovery in the rubble.

Two of the workmen rushed from the scene, as though frightened by what they had uncovered. The officer shouted after them, then barked loudly at the two French soldiers standing the watch, and the men came running in response.

Now Nordhausen saw that the two laborers had gone to fetch a sturdy rope and tackle. The officer was giving orders, his riding crop pointing this way and that, and he soon eyed the coach that LeGrand had arrived in, pointing at the horse. It was clear that he wanted to utilize the animal to help haul something out of the rubble. LeGrand, still beaming with a smug, self-satisfied expression, strode forward to offer his services. He gestured to Nordhausen with his hand, beckoning him to follow.

Robert and Maeve needed no encouragement. They were inching closer, trying to remain discreet, but keenly interested in the find. Khalid was right on their heels.

LeGrand stepped up, bowed to the French officer, and then gestured magnanimously at his horse and tackle, where the soldiers were already loosening the carriage harness and hitch to free the beast for their purposes, whether LeGrand approved or not. Dust clouded the scene, obscuring the find, but LeGrand acted as though he was playing out a well rehearsed part.

“Be my guest,” Nordhausen heard LeGrand say in French. “But what is it you have discovered, monsieur?”

LeGrand turned, expectantly, his face still molded in a jovial smile, and then he froze, as though struck by the officer’s riding crop. His eyes widened, bright ovals above the doughy cheeks of his face, and his jaw gaped open with a look of complete astonishment.

“Mon dieu!” the invocation escaped his lips as he gazed, and Nordhausen hurried forward to see what he was looking at, tripping on a pile of loosened rock. As he rose, Khalid strode boldly forward, a look of great satisfaction blooming on his face when he saw LeGrand’s reaction. He started to laugh, pointing a long thin finger at LeGrand as he spoke.

“Not what you expected, monsieur?” His eyes glittered. “Something to put a little fire in your next courier dispatch?” Now his laughter could not be restrained.

Nordhausen gaped at him, struggling to his feet. Maeve came up to lend him a hand, and they started down the gentle incline to approach the dig site. LeGrand had cupped his ears with his palms, as if to shut out the laughter of his adversary, but the gesture seemed more one of amazement. It was then that they saw Khalid turn to look upon the discovery that was obviously the source of his elation.

“Do I work some mischief for the Sultan, he wonders? More than you could possibly know, my friend.” But then his words were cut short and, like LeGrand before him, his eyes opened with surprise and shock. “Ahliah! He exclaimed, the mirth driven from his face and a look of profound distress in its place.

Nordhausen ran the last few steps. Pushing his way through the gathering crown until he reached the edge of the site. Maeve called after him the moment he ran forward, obviously perturbed.

“Come back here, Robert!” She had seen the spark of irrepressible curiosity in his eyes and was worried that he would do something—say something—that would cause some grave complication. There were many French soldiers at the scene now, and she was certain Robert would draw unwanted attention to himself the moment he opened his mouth.

She looked and saw him come up short at the lip of the dig, then heard him take in a sudden breath, as though startled by what he saw. His hand shot up to the top of his head, an involuntary gesture of bewilderment. She saw him scratch and then, to her great dismay, he pulled off his wig, thoughtlessly, carelessly, as though he was totally unaware of what he had just done.

She pressed closer, finally reaching the place where the others stood, clearly dumbfounded by the moment of discovery. The soldiers were pointing and speaking rapidly to one another in French. She saw the officer of engineers lean in, eyes squinting at the find now that the dust had settled. What in the world could have caused such commotion?

Then she saw it, the great black shape jutting from the side of the embankment below the wall, and now she understood, at last, the marvel of all those who looked on. A silence fell on the scene as the French officer of engineers stooped and extended his arm to touch the thing they had unearthed. He reached out, as though afraid that he might be scalded by the stone. She saw his hand play lightly over the smooth, polished surface of the find, one finger tracing a delicate path over the carved lettering. Then the hush resolved into a rush of whispers. People were turning to one another, nodding wide eyed conclusions, and she saw Khalid staring at LeGrand as if he expected to have the same berating laughter thrown at him by the man.

The look on LeGrand’s face was plain to see, however, and it was clear that neither man could lay claim to any victory in the find.

Robert turned, remembering her at last, and gestured wildly for her to take the final step forward and look upon the scene. She passed a moment of hesitation and great anxiety. Something was wrong. She could see it on everyone’s face, though many seemed to glow with joy at the find. Yet for LeGrand and Khalid, the discovery seemed to promise great trouble. It was clear to her now that one man or the other expected to come out the better when the shape of the ancient stone was finally unearthed.

Now she knew that both were secret adversaries in the struggle that had begun on that first stormy night in Berkeley—the night they resolved to spin up the Arch for the very first time and breach the womb of time. She turned her head, slowly, deliberately, and looked upon the shape that had been unearthed.

Robert gaped at her, waiting to see the same look of astonishment sweep across her features. Instead he saw the tightening of her jaw, and the tension in her eyes, set tighter now, and reflecting some unalterable inner conclusion as she took in the scene. There was wonder there, to be sure, but it was ruthlessly suppressed. In its place he saw the glimmer of anger kindled like a growing fire, and he knew at last, in the wake of his own confusion and surprise, a moment of great doubt and fear.

20

It had taken them the better part of three hours, and nearly fifty men with levers and ropes, but they had it up on the wooden truss now, freed from the long embrace of the dry earthen embankment where it had slept for so many centuries.

Robert watched them work for a time, his excitement and curiosity keeping him at the edge of the dig site. He could not help himself, and took hold of a rope when the laborers had hitched it about the great carved shape of black basalt. It was Maeve’s insistent tugging at his arm that eventually brought him back to his senses.

“Robert!” she hissed in his ear, hoping no one else would hear. “The time… we’ve got to get back!”

The retraction scheme wasn’t scheduled to kick in until tomorrow. What was she worried about? Still, the urgency in her voice finally penetrated the excitement that had possessed him earlier.

As she pulled him away, he took one last look at it. There it was, the famous stone that had proved a key to an entire culture and history buried in a thousand tombs, hidden away in the barren deserts of Egypt. There it was, a marvelously polished slab of black basalt, looking a bit like finely grained granite, and carved with hundreds of Egyptian glyphs. He had come here to determine its condition, to see if the damage he had discovered in the London Museum was something he might have caused with his own headstrong curiosity. His every hope was to find the stone fully intact, not broken as he had seen it in the dark, dusty cellars of the museum where it was no more than another forgotten curiosity. Now, when he looked upon it one last time, the full implications of what he was seeing finally began to register in his mind.

Fully intact… The stone was not broken. It bore no sign of damage of any kind, save the inevitable wear of the ages, with intermittent chinks and abrasions marring the smooth, polished surface. It was not broken… no damage at all, but the amazing thing was that this was not the familiar shape of the Rosetta Stone that he had studied all his life! It was fully twice the size of the stone he knew. The stone he was familiar with could have only been the lower portion of this great monolith. If lifted up on its end, this stone would tower over his head. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. This was something altogether different.

At the very top, the image of a vulture’s wings were extended across the whole of the stone. At the heart of the bird was an image of Ra as the sun, and two cobras dangled down from either side, turning at the bottom and rearing up in a classic pose of regal threat. These carvings arched over a gathering of lords in two columns, facing each other, and marching in from opposite sides of the stone. There were seven lords facing each direction, all wearing regal head gear and bearing scepters of authority and power. The professor recognized the elongated ovals of cartouche symbols above their heads, naming each member of the assemblage as they gathered.

Directly below this were long rows of hieroglyphics as they appeared on the upper portion of the old stone, but they extended down the whole face of this artifact, even to the base! Where was the Greek Text? Where was the Demotic rendition of the messages carved by the glyphs?

As Maeve pulled on his arm with increasing urgency, he fixed his last gaze on the writing, realizing he could still read it. His mind immediately translated what he saw: “Through the ages now he comes to a mystery: one death gives birth, a great wind upon the face of the sea, in a place forever hidden where the lions roar: ‘mine is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.”

Maeve prevailed at last and managed to pull him away. LeGrand turned as the two travelers started away, but his attention was soon drawn to the stone again, and the growing effort to recover it from the rubble. Khalid saw them leaving as well, Nordhausen pulled along by Maeve as they fled through a low arch in the walls, seeking a way back to the inn where they had spent the night.

“I can’t believe it!” Nordhausen breathed as they went. “It’s not the stone—but yet it was the stone. It has to be. Yet it was something entirely new! There was no Greek writing on it, and not a single word of Demotic script that I could see. The whole thing was—”

“Later, Robert. We have to get out of sight! I’m feeling very strange.” She paused briefly, struggling with her skirts and looking about her to see if anyone had noticed them. They had reached the edge of a grove of palms interspersed with a few banana trees cultivated in the fields before a small adobe farmstead. There was no one around, the commotion of the discovery acting like a magnet and pulling in all the locals to the frenzied activity at the dig site.

“How is this supposed to work?” asked Maeve. She pulled hard on Robert’s arm when he did not answer her, shaking him from his reverie.

“What?”

“How does it work, Robert? Do we have to get back to the breaching point? Do we have to go all that way? When will it happen? How much time do you think we have left?”

Robert realized she was talking about the retraction. “How much time? The retraction is scheduled for tomorrow morning!”

“Perhaps so… but I’m feeling… quite odd just now. I think my integrity is slipping.”

“Really? Well its probably just the sun, and all this excitement, and the dust. But, to answer your other question, I don’t think we need be anywhere close to the breaching point. Paul and I wandered very far during that first mission, and I took the train from London to—well, never mind that. The point is: it could happen anywhere… at any moment, I suppose.” Now he was looking around, realizing that it would be best to find some secluded spot where they could wait out the remaining hours.

“Over there,” he pointed to a cart path that led along the fringes of the thick palm grove. “That way looks promising.”

As they started toward it they heard a voice calling after them and turned about. Khalid was rushing over the parched ground, his lavender fringed robes flowing behind him.

“That’s done it,” Robert exclaimed. “Come on, we’ve got to give him the slip!” But Khalid was fast upon them, hastening up and calling for them to wait.

“It’s no use,” said Maeve. “He’s seen us, and he can follow us easily from this point if we make a run for it. Besides, the heat is appalling, and these skirts are a nuisance.”

“Friends, wait!” Khalid came up, breathless, but smiling with relief. “Oh, what a day!” He beamed at them. “Did you see it? Did you see it?” His hands trembled as he spoke, and he seemed to gaze at the sky as he praised Allah aloud, tears watering the corners of his eyes.

Robert did not know what to make of him, or his reaction, but Khalid was quick to explain. “It is wondrous, a miracle beyond my wildest hopes! We thought to find it broken—that is the middle way, the path of struggle and many hard years of strife and woe. Yes, I know you had hopes here as well. You came for the discovery, of course, for the stone. Forgive my deception earlier, but we all walk behind a veil, do we not? Believe me now when I tell you that there is sorrow in my heart at what you have witnessed. Forgive me—forgive us all, but there was no other way. We worked it, day and night, and the best we could achieve was a hundred years of enmity. But something has changed! Yes! A great transformation has occurred. It is all made new again, even as it was on the day our sword was first drawn in anger. Imagine my surprise! I was sent to keep watch, and now I must go to bring this news to my people. Oh, day of days! Allah be praised. We worked it, and now we may walk this world redeemed, with shining eyes and heads held high.”

“What in the world are you talking about?“ said Robert.

“Of what do I speak? Of a great day… but yet, more of a little thing that works the miracle. A’athreh ib dafra.”

“Look here, you have been very gracious, but we simply must be on our way.”

“Forgive me,” Khalid held up a hand. “A’athreh ib dafra. It is a saying among Arabs. It means: with a stumble and a kick. Such is the way of it. Small things, a stumble and a kick, but the harvest is great. Still, I am sorry for you, I will weep for you—you must believe me. Tonight I will pray to Allah that he will take you in the palm of his hand, and preserve your lives. Yes, you must go now. No one will be the wiser. Take that trail and you will find a barn behind this farm. There you may rest until the time of recovery. And may Allah go with you through all the days that remain.”

What was he talking about? Nordhausen kept running Khalid’s words over and over in his mind. He seemed possessed, like a man enraptured, but buoyant, alive, exhilarated by the discovery that so baffled the professor now. The lines of the script still burned in his recollection. What did they mean?

He looked at Maeve, hoping to find support for his confused state of mind in her unshakable logic. If anyone would know what to make of this, it would be Maeve. She was watching Khalid go now, hastening away, back toward the site of the discovery. Already the word had begun to spread that something extraordinary had been unearthed at the base of the wall. The French soldiers could be heard shouting in the distance, and Nordhausen, with the history in mind, knew that they would be dragging the Rosetta Stone to the tent of General Menou, where the slab would be carefully cleaned and examined before being transported, by river barge, to Cairo.

He remembered how Maeve first wagered that, if the stone were intact, the trip from Rosetta to Cairo would have been the ideal time for someone to inflict the damage. But that whole line of argument was meaningless now. The original Rosetta Stone inscribed the same message in each of three different languages. This stone held only one language—it was completely covered by the ancient hieroglyphics… no Demotic… No Greek… It was completely useless as a key to translating the glyphs… completely useless…

His attention was shaken when Maeve suddenly swayed, as though overcome by the heat, and fell. Robert stooped to help but, as he did so, an unaccountable chill shook his frame. He knew at once why he was becoming so light headed. Maeve looked at him, her features frozen with an expression of panic. He reached for her hand as the haze of a blue frost materialized about them, transforming into the shimmer of a multi-colored aurora. There was a sensation of falling, and he felt Maeve’s hand tighten. The retraction scheme was kicking in! Kelly and Paul were pulling them back through the Arch at Lawrence Berkeley Labs. But why now? They still had a hours to wait—unless something had moved his friends to retrieve them at once, with an untimely urgency that added yet another chill to the moment at hand.

21

“I just don’t see how this could be possible,” said Paul. “The haze in trying to alter the stone prior to its discovery would be intense. How would they know where to look for the damn thing?”

It was four o’clock on a gray September afternoon in Berkeley, and the growl of the generator turbines had finally subsided as the system reduced power. Paul was still keeping the Arch active on standby, with the generators running at 70% until the retraction was complete. Then he would take them down to 50%, just enough to maintain the electromagnetic field the Arch would create—enough to sustain the thin, protective boundaries of the Nexus Point it welled in the flow of Time.

The four primary team members were assembled in the lab. Nordhausen had taken off his wig and was still scratching the back of his head. Maeve had recovered from the retraction shift, a bit nauseous and disoriented, but feeling better by the minute. Kelly had a pot of hot coffee at the ready, and he was stirring a bit of cream into Maeve’s cup, hovering over her where she sat by the history console looking pale and tired.

After the elation of their safe return, and hugs all around, Robert was quick to break the news. He began talking about the discovery of the stone, trying to describe the new artifact that had been unearthed as best he could. He soon found words inadequate to the task and dragged Paul over to the Touchstone RAM bank where he retrieved an image of the stone from the data files and printed it out. Then he began to draw, carefully sketching from the his memory of the new find.

He presented Paul the drawing. “There,” he said, “Except all the Demotic and Greek in the image was covered with ancient hieroglyphics!” The two men hunched over the drawing, as if the answer to the dilemma might be found in the picture.

“You’re certain it looked like this?”

“Absolutely! Maeve will vouch for that.”

“How could this be?” Paul was still trying to see a clear line of reasoning to explain the change. “They would have to go back to the time the stone was originally made and then convince the makers to alter it by leaving out the Demotic and Greek script. Do you realize how difficult that intervention would be?”

“Yes,” said Nordhausen. “It was an established convention to display these proclamations in all three languages. The discovery of similar stones at Bubastis confirmed that in 2004. Perhaps they replaced the stone with another,” he suggested. “They knew exactly where to find it. Suppose they simply went back on some lonesome night and dug the original stone up.”

“You say it was twice the size of the original? That would mean they had to bring in an artifact weighing fifteen hundred kilos! I don’t think so. And what would they do with the original? You can’t transport an object of that size easily in the physical world, let alone through Time.”

”Why not? I went back and retrieved Lawrence’s manuscript of the Seven Pillars.” Robert caught himself too late. Paul looked at him, a dumbfounded expression on his face.

Maeve was suddenly making a remarkable recovery from the stupor of her Time shift. “You did what?” She was up off her chair, parasol still in hand, and advancing on the professor with bad intent. “When did this happen?”

Nordhausen looked from Paul to Maeve as she advanced, edging behind Paul’s chair to seek protection. “Alright… alright now. If you must know everything, I did it on that mission last July. You know, when I went to visit Reading Station. I wasn’t just sightseeing as I told you.”

“Damn you, Robert!” Maeve took a quick swipe at him with her parasol, scoring a glancing blow on his shoulder. He ducked behind Paul, flustered and embarrassed.

“It was the lost manuscript,” Nordhausen pleaded, “not the original. It was stolen on the train ride Lawrence took—”

“I knew that was what you were up to,” Maeve’s eyes narrowed, and she swiped at Robert again, the parasol rapping hard on the back of Paul’s chair as he dodged.

“Hey, take it easy,” Paul protested, but Maeve was angling for a better chance at getting the professor on the head.

“Kelly!” Robert yelled. “Do something! Stop that crazy woman before she runs me through with that thing.”

Kelly had a big grin on his face, and he simply folded his arms and smiled, leaning back in his chair as he struggled to suppress his laughter.

“I’ll show you who’s crazy,” Maeve lunged forward with the parasol, plugging the professor right in the belly with a hard jab. He yelped in protest, but then simply held up his hands in surrender.

“Alright, I give in. I did it, and I’ll never live down the shame. I was just a selfish man, hoping to rescue something from trash heap of history, and it all came down around me, to no good.”

Maeve was ready to give him one last jab, but she relented, plunking the parasol down on the floor with a hard thump and leaning on it heavily. There was a moment of strained silence, then Kelly burst out laughing.

“We knew you were after something,” he said. “Maeve did the follow-up research and narrowed things down. The only event that was even remotely significant was the loss of the manuscript. So, you actually found the darn thing, did you? And you mean to say you still have it?”

“Yes, yes, I confess. It’s stored in a vault in my study. I know—the consequences could be devastating. Suppose it was meant to be discovered by someone else—years from now—when we are all gone. I’ve had that in my belly ever since.”

“And you’ll get a lot more in your belly if you so much as think of another stunt like that again,” Maeve vented. “Next time I will run you through with this—or worse!”

Nordhausen passed a brief moment of terror, imagining the full brunt of Maeve’s anger unleashed upon him for his misadventures, though he knew he would deserve every agonizing second. He had been headstrong, and foolish, and he deceived his dearest friends at the same time. The whole weight of time seemed to fall on him now and he slumped against the console behind Paul’s chair, deflated and clearly upset with himself.

Maeve saw the expression on his face, but a gleam of mischief came to her eye as she looked at him.

“Do you know he tried to shoot Napoleon just now,” she said to Paul.

“What?” Paul looked at Robert, aghast.

“Now, see here, Maeve. I did no such thing!” The professor was trying to defend himself, his eye still fixed on the parasol.

“Oh, yes,” said Maeve, having her fun now. “Just after we manifested—before you moved us back on target. He waltzed right over, picked up a rifle, and he was aiming the damn thing out the window at Napoleon.”

“I was not!”

“I barely got to him in time.” Now Maeve smiled, unable to keep up the front of her anger, and satisfied that she had made her point with the professor.

Paul looked from one to the other, and Kelly was still laughing, holding his stomach as he rocked back in his swivel chair.

“Alright,” Nordhausen protested as he realized Maeve was playing out the moment for all it was worth. “Enough of this. You can think up some horror for me later, and I promise you I will submit to any punishment you decide to mete out. But the stone! We’ve got to figure this out! How could they pull off a switch like that? Could they have carved it elsewhere, at the target time, and then floated it to the site on the river?” The professor was trying to conceive the operation himself as he went along, filling in the gray with wild assumptions.

“Again,” said Paul, “what would they do with the original? It weighed 720 Kilos. You might get away with carrying some small object back on your person, like our literary thief here, but not an object the size of the Rosetta Stone. No… this is worse than we think,” he said.

Nordhausen waited, hanging on the unspoken conclusion that was evident in Paul’s voice. “Well?” he was unable to contain himself.

It was Maeve who spoke up now, her eyes fixed on Paul this time. “There’s been a transformation,” she said, matter of factly. “That’s why you pulled us out early; that’s why you won’t let the Arch spin down, isn’t it, Paul? You’re keeping the Nexus Point open for us here, because you know things have changed. Has anyone been outside this room since we returned? Does anyone have the slightest notion of what the world looks like out there?” There was an urgency in her voice, and an edge of fear.

Kelly wasn’t laughing any longer, and the four team members stood in silence, listening to the distant thrum of the generator turbines. Paul spoke next, his voice laden with the weight of Maeve’s deduction.

“I’m afraid she’s correct,” he said. “The alteration to the stone is too pronounced, too radical. If what you are saying is true, and it bore no inscription in Demotic or Greek, then our adversaries have managed to pull off a major coup while we were dallying about with this Rosetta business. God only knows what they’ve done.”

“What do you mean?” Robert looked at him, slipping out from behind the chair.

“What I mean is this: you say you think the Assassins were using the glyphs as a code, correct? Then this whole affair has been aimed at preserving the secrecy of that language. Now, I don’t know how they accomplished it, but they’ve managed to permanently do away with the Touchstone that led to the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. That means their code is secure, and all the messages they’ve been sending back and forth through time will remain a secret. Who knows what advantage that has given them in the Time war—perhaps it was enough to swing things in their favor again.”

“Yes!” Nordhausen put in loudly. “Khalid said something about a transformation—do you remember it Maeve? He said there was a miracle. They worked it, day and night, and the best they could achieve was a hundred years of enmity. But now something has changed! Khalid said it was all made new again!”

“Khalid?”

“Someone we met at Rosetta. In fact, we met two agents in place. One man, a fellow named LeGrand, was clearly an operative of the Order. I was a bit obtuse on that point, but Maeve saw right through him. Then we were approached by a second man, an Arab. Later, at the dig site, the two men spoke, and it was clear that they knew one another—as adversaries.”

He gave Paul the details of their mission, and angled back to those final moments before the retraction pulled them out. “Can you imagine,” he began, “the man actually apologized. He asked forgiveness and said he would pray for us. I wonder what he meant by that?”

Maeve looked at Kelly, who was rocking back and forth in his chair, a steady squeak punctuating each move.

“What about the Golems, Kelly? I thought they were supposed to warn us of any variation in the Meridians.”

“Good point,” said Kelly, getting up quickly. He went over to the history module, leaning in to inspect the console. “We haven’t heard a peep from the Golems.” He settled into a chair and began entering commands.

“Is there a radio handy?” Nordhausen asked.

“Radio? Yes we have a shortwave built into the history console there.” Kelly pointed and Paul spun his chair around, fixing his eyes on the communications module.

He reached out, his hand hovering over the dial as if it might burn him. Then he switched on the radio and they all hushed to listen. The speaker played a steady wash of static, which seemed to surprise Kelly at once.

“I had that set to KPFA talk radio—94.1 FM. Has someone moved the dial?”

Paul looked at the digital readout. The numbers were still set to 94.1. He checked to be certain the radio was receiving the FM band. Then he pressed the search feature and watched the numbers scroll. Static rippled through the speaker, until the signal strength located something and locked on. A man was singing in another language. The first thing that came to Paul’s mind was that he had stumbled across a Spanish broadcast channel, then the realization of what he was hearing struck him, and the color faded from his cheeks.

One by one the same awareness came to each of them as they listened. They were hearing the chant of the muezzin as he sung the call to prayer from the minaret of some distant, unseen mosque. His voice rose and fell, filling the silence of the room with a haunting chorus that deepened to a feeling of impending calamity. The lingering echo of the singer’s voice seemed to taunt them now, rising and falling through the intermittent static of the radio. Then the signal faded, unable to penetrate the magnetic aura of the Arch that surrounded them, and was gone.

Part VIII

Chaos

“Chaos umpire sits.

And by his decision more embroils the fray.”

—Milton: Paradise Lost II, 907-909

22

Paul looked at Kelly, who was hunched in thought as he tapped away at the history module controls. It was clear that something was wrong there.

“That’s odd,” said Nordhausen. “Could we be receiving a signal from the Middle East on the FM Band? Are you sure you don’t have the thing set to a shortwave channel? I often get foreign broadcasts when I browse the wires in my study. In fact, I listen to the BBC every night.”

“No, this is an FM signal. I’m certain of it,” said Paul.

“How very odd,” said the professor. “Atmospheric conditions must be ideal for an FM signal to go that far.”

Paul said nothing. He was suddenly very interested in Kelly at the history module. “What’s up with the Golems?” He leaned in to inspect the computer console.

Kelly just looked at him, then squinted at his monitor again. His face was a mixture of perplexity and disbelief.

“Come on,” said Maeve. “What do the little critters say about all this?”

Kelly gave a sigh and swiveled in his chair to face them. “I’ve got no variance flags on the RAM bank, no Golem warnings at all.”

“Great,” said Nordhausen. “That means this isn’t a major transformation after all. The Golems have found nothing amiss.”

“Yes, and let me tell you why.” Kelly’s voice had a warning in it now. He looked at them, his eyes shifting from one to another, even as the conclusion he was arriving at grew more certain in his mind. “The net must be down…”

The words seemed to linger in the air when he spoke them. He saw the faces of his friends crease with concern.

“What do you mean?” Robert spoke up first. “What do you mean the net is down?”

“I’ve been trying to query the network,” said Kelly, but I can’t seem to get a response. There’s over 100,000 machines out there on the net with my Golem program installed, but I can’t connect with a single IP address. It’s very strange.”

“You’re saying the Internet is down?” Nordhausen had an unbelieving expression on his face. “How is that possible? I mean, it was designed to survive a nuclear war, wasn’t it?”

“Theoretically…” Kelly was thinking hard now. “There’s no one single hub on the net that could bring the whole thing down if it failed. It’s a widely distributed network, with hundreds of thousands of servers scattered all over the world.”

“Then the problem must be local,” said Robert. “Check your connection, Kelly. You’re the networking guru.”

“I have checked it—give me some credit, will you?”

“Then it must be the damn ISP.”

“No, it’s not. We have no ISP. We’ve got a direct high-speed optical fiber link, right into the backbone of the Internet.”

“Then what’s the problem? Is your machine in order?”

Kelly held up a hand, fending off the professor as he came up to the history module. “You don’t understand,” he said as firmly as he could. “The hardware here is fine. I just ran system calls on every lab console. Our RAM bank memory is holding true, no problem there, but it’s the net, I tell you. It’s not there…”

Nordhausen just looked at him, a half smile on his face, fading with each second against the resolve in Kelly’s voice. “Not there?” He repeated the phrase, unbelieving.

“I can’t get a response from my Golems because there’s no network traffic,” Kelly explained. “No network traffic of any kind. My query packets are being generated, but they all time out with no response from the network.”

“This is absurd,” said Nordhausen. “How could the entire Internet be down?”

Paul was off his chair and heading toward the stair well. The professor had turned to him for an answer to the dilemma when he saw him go. “Paul?” The plaintive twang in Nordhausen’s voice was plain to hear. Somewhere, deep inside, he was possessed with the notion that this was all his fault. It was his insatiable curiosity, after all, that had started the whole thing. He had to take that train ride to steal Lawrence’s lost manuscript… he had to go back to have a look at the Rosetta Stone in the British museum. While Paul had tried to comfort him, explaining that nothing he did could have caused a major transformation, the professor was still nagged by guilt, and the look on Maeve’s face did nothing to assuage his embattled conscience.

“Where are you going?” He called, following after his friend.

“The observation deck,” Paul said flatly. “It’s only two flights up, and the Arch effect should still encompass the dome. I’m going up to have a look outside.”

“Good idea. Let’s have a look outside.” Maeve started after him, but Kelly remained behind, hunched over his keyboard as he stroked his chin in thought.

Paul led the way into the stairwell and up a few short flights of stairs. He reached for the door at the top, and Nordhausen saw a slight tremor in his hand. Then he took hold of the latch and pushed hard. The door opened with a metallic squeak and Paul went through. Robert and Maeve crowded close behind him, as if his presence would offer them some protection from whatever they would find on the other side.

The room was very cold, and completely dark. There was an acrid smell in the air, like ozone on a smoggy day in the city. Nordhausen saw Paul grope for the light switch, and it flicked on. Their gaze was immediately drawn to the far wall, where a series of windows marched in a circle at the base of a shallow dome.

“What time is it?” Nordhausen asked an obvious question, for there was inky darkness beyond the panes. He stepped to the edge of the dome, feeling the cold grow more pronounced as he approached the glass.

“It’s half past four, in the afternoon,” said Paul.

“What? Is it storming? Why is it so dark? Look at it, Paul, you can’t see a thing out there. Is that fog or are we just socked in with overcast?”

“Weather report was for clear skies, sixty five degrees,” Paul said matter of factly. “You were just telling me how the atmospheric conditions had to be ideal for an FM signal to reach us from the Middle East. That’s the bay side of the dome there, Robert, and we should be able to see the sun starting to set over the city by now.

“Sixty-five degrees? Come over here! It’s freezing out there! It must be a freak storm that blew in off the ocean. What else?”

Paul came to his side, immediately noticing the chill. Maeve hung back, her arms folded tightly against the cold that was ever more penetrating now. There was a flash of light outside the dome, lending support to Nordhausen’s suggestion.

“See what I mean?”

“I’d like to,” said Paul “but I don’t think that’s lightning.” While it looked like a tempest was raging outside, Paul could not believe his eyes.

“Not lightning? Come on, Paul, come to your senses.”

“It’s green,” said Paul. “Ever see green lightning? And don’t tell me it’s the Aurora Borealis. We would never see them this far south. Besides, I’d recognize them at once.” Paul had served a three year stint as a teacher in Alaska when he was just out of college.

“Not lightning?” Nordhausen repeated the objection again, unbelieving, but his own voice quavered, and now the cold was sending chills all though his frame.

“Feel that…” Paul’s breath was frosty. “This is San Francisco, Robert. That’s arctic cold. Ever feel that here before?”

Nordhausen turned to him, shivering. “Are you saying something’s happened to the weather now? Are you saying the world is spun off its axis and this is the North Pole? Damn it! What’s going on here?”

“Let’s get back downstairs.” Paul tugged at him, pulling him back from the opaque murkiness beyond the windows. Maeve was pale and cold, clearly worried as they retreated to the door.

“What does this mean, Paul?” Nordhausen’s voice was punctuated by the clatter of their footsteps echoing in the stair well, but Paul said nothing, deep in thought.

When they reached the bottom and opened the door they were surprised to see that the consoles seemed alive again. Lights were flashing to the staccato electronic beep of the computers. Nordhausen beamed when he saw it, smiling with relief. “He’s got the net back. I told you! It was just a local problem after all—must have been the storm.” He rushed toward the consoles, gleeful to have a plausible explanation in hand at last. But Paul’s trained eyes scanned the room quickly and came to another conclusion that had escaped the professor entirely.

“What’s the read, Kelly?” Nordhausen was at the history console now, but Kelly was looking over his shoulder at another bank of equipment. “Is the net back up?” Nordhausen persisted, more enthusiastic now. “Is this a variance report coming in?”

“Quiet!” Kelly was watching the other workstation now. “Paul?” He looked for Paul in the room, finding him with worried eyes.

“I see it,” said Paul. “Let’s get power back up beyond standby mode.”

“Right,” said Kelly, moving quickly past the professor to another console across the room.

Maeve stood in silence, watching as the two men went to work with a feverish urgency. She knew what was happening, being familiar enough with the equipment from her stint with Kelly on the initial operations.

“Now what in blazes is going on here?” Nordhausen was getting angry.

“Be quiet, Robert,” said Maeve. “Can’t you see what’s going on? That’s the retraction module.” Maeve’s revelation did little to dispel the professor’s confusion.

“The retraction module? Is it still operating? We’ve been here for over an hour now. I haven’t even had time to get out of these clothes. Turn the damn thing off, Paul, we’ve got to check on this Golem alert.”

Kelly gave the professor a withering look. Then he put his hands on his hips and explained. “Look Robert, there is no Golem alert. I told you—the net is down. It’s not responding. There’s nothing out there, at least not that I can reach. And this—“ He pointed to the workstation where Paul was making quick adjustments to the quantum infusion chamber. “This is the retraction module, just like Maeve said. So sit down and be quiet. We’ve got to focus now.”

Robert was dumbfounded. He took a deep breath and recovered a bit of his composure. “I know very well that’s the retraction module. Why don’t we just turn it off and be done with it? If the net is down then we’ve got to start thinking on our own. What about the stone?”

The professor felt two hands grip hard on his shoulders, pushing down firmly. He found himself plopped into a swivel chair and twisted about to see Maeve frowning at him again.

“Quiet, Robert,” she said in a low voice. “They’ve got to be sure the system timing is balanced now, understand?”

“But—” The flare in Maeve’s eyes silenced him, and she spoke again, the words striking Nordhausen like a hammer.

“Someone is coming through the Arch.”

23

All eyes turned to the far end of the lab complex where a massive circular door gleamed in the cool light of the overhead neon. It was the portal that would lead to the access tunnel of the Arch. Far below the lab, the on-site generators were thrumming away to provide the enormous power required for the operation. Kelly was monitoring the buildup, watching as the power indicator swept through 80% on its way to maximum surge. It seemed sluggish to him, and he was concerned. As if he could read his friend’s thoughts, Paul looked over his shoulder and tossed him a question.

“How are we on power?”

“Eighty-seven percent, and building. But it’s not ramping up like it should. I think we may have lost our connection to the outside power grid.” He toggled a bank of switches and nodded his head. “Yup, nothing coming in from PG&E.”

“Damn storm has the whole Bay Area down,” put in Nordhausen, who looked at Maeve to see if he was about to suffer any reprisal for breaking silence. She let the remark pass, giving him a sideward glance, her attention primarily focused on Kelly.

“We’re on internal power now,” said Kelly. “Fuel looks good, at least for the next several hours. How’s the particle infusion?”

“I’ve got enough left for a retraction, but…”

The question that was in everyone’s mind was left unspoken. Who was coming through the Arch? How were they shifting in? Where were they coming from?

“Robert…” Paul looked away from the infusion chamber. “Make yourself useful. You and Maeve will have to form our welcoming committee. I have no idea what to expect, but could the two of you get down to the Arch?”

“But what if it’s the Assassins?” The professor was the first to vocalize the obvious fear. “Do you expect me to fend them off at the elevator? We don’t even have any weapons here.”

“Relax,” said Maeve. “I’ll take my parasol.” She was pulling him up from the chair and heading for the titanium door. Kelly had toggled the breaching command, and the massive door was swinging open on its oiled metal hinges.

“Come along, Robert. We’ve got to get through before it closes.”

“The intercom is open,” Kelly shouted after them. “Be careful! Damn,” he said to Paul, “I wish we had installed cameras. I don’t like the idea of someone dropping in unannounced like this. Who could it be?”

“God only knows,” said Paul. “One side or the other. But whoever it is, they seem to want to talk something over with the Founders.”

“Or blow the Founders to pieces,” Kelly suggested. “What if Robert is right and the Assassins come through to take us all out? What if there really was a Transformation and the world we’re living in now has no Internet—at least not one that functions as we might expect it. I was pinging all over the world moments ago, looking for my Golems. That’s one hell of a way to shout ‘here I am ‘ on the network, if there is one.”

Paul smiled. “You’re suggesting the Islamic Thought Police have a line on our location and coming in to take us down?”

“Well, we didn’t initiate the breach, Paul. I have no base number as a reference. Someone clearly knows our coordinates—the exact temporal and spatial coordinates of the Arch.”

“Forget the murder scenario,” said Paul. “The fact that the Arch is their focal target is good evidence that they intend no harm. As you can see, their arrival is not exactly a secret. I could reverse polarity now and stop the breaching sequence altogether if I wanted. They have to know that as well. And to answer your question, they are using the Arch because we’re in a Nexus Point. You can’t run a breach into a Nexus without assistance at the other end. I think they sent through their breaching pulse to give us a little nudge and ask for some help. How’s the power look now?”

“Ninety-four percent. It’s sluggish. I don’t know if the on-site turbines can give us a hundred percent, and we have no reserve if anything should fail.”

“When it hits ninety-five I’ll start the infusion.”

“Go!” said Kelly, pointing with his finger.

Paul activated the retraction module, feeding in the precious quantum fuel and hoping the equipment would hold together.”

~

“This is ridiculous!” said Nordhausen as the elevator opened on the bottom floor of the Arch bay. “Look at us… we’re still dressed up in costume. If anyone comes through they’ll immediately think they’ve got the wrong time.”

“Nonsense,” said Maeve. “Since this is the earliest functional Arch in any Meridian, they can’t be coming from the past. That means they’re from the future. They’ve probably had decades to research this,” she concluded.

“It’s creepy,” said Nordhausen. “I don’t like the idea of someone knowing everything I’m likely to do for the remainder of my life, and making casual visits to chat like this… unless they intend something more. Damn, I wish I had my walking stick.”

They were beyond the final door now, the last barrier between the world they knew and the heart of the Arch corridor where an artificial singularity was spinning out in a mad dance of quantum particles, a strange temporal waltz. The sound of the generators was pounding in the confined space, and the temperature was noticeably cold. But the most obvious sign that the breach was commencing was the cavalcade of lights, a whirlwind of auroras directly in front of them. The radiance and hue of the colors was awesome, and Robert found himself gaping at the display as he recalled the images he had seen when he first opened his eyes in the Arch flow.

The thick yellow line on the concrete floor ahead was the only thing between them and the hole that was now opening in infinity. Robert seemed to press toward it with an eagerness that seemed compelling. Maeve hung back, reaching to grab hold of the professor’s arm to restrain his forward movement.

“Not too close,” she warned. “This is a retraction. We’ve never tested for this scenario, and I have no idea what would happen if someone was in the Arch when the breach actually opened. Stay well back from the event line.”

Robert nodded, but his face was alight with wonder and expectation. Whatever fear he had conjured up, of sword wielding Arab Assassins bursting through the Arch on a death mission, it had evaporated now that he was in the presence of the incredible spectacle before him.

The temperature dropped precipitously, and there came a low growling sound, like a train passing, or again a tornado as it swept by on a raging unseen tempest. Then a hazy fog, thick and cold, and tinged with neon blue, began to materialize before them in the center of the Arch. Robert strained to see as the mist grew in density, resolving to the unmistakable shape of a man, though he remained obscured by the fog. There came a long howling sound, wolf like and hungry, as if pack of rabid dogs were on the prowl. Through the torrent of light and sound, they could hear the voice of Kelly on the intercom, distant and tinny.

“Breach closing… Is everyone alright down there?” His voice had a strange hollow echo to it, as though it was coming from a thousand miles away, barely discernable in the noise of the corridor.

A man strode forward, the cold mist evaporating around him in a crackle of blue light. He was heavy set, and Robert saw that he wore a long gray cape, and black floppy headpiece. He looked at Maeve, and they shared a flash of recognition as the man stepped toward them with a smile on his broad, fleshy face.

It was LeGrand.

“We meet again!” he said with enthusiasm.

He seemed a bit pale, clearly shaken, yet recovering well considering the strange disorientation and nausea that could accompany a time shift. Maeve raised her eyebrows, her suspicions immediately aroused, but civility prevailed, and she was the first to reach out and take the visitor’s arm, steadying him as he swayed in momentary spell of dizziness. Robert moved to assist her, and together they helped LeGrand away from the event line and back through the massive titanium door behind them. A moment later it closed with a sibilant hiss.

“Vapor barrier,” said Nordhausen. “We have slightly negative pressure in the Arch, at least relative to that in the main lab complex. Just a precaution. But my word, LeGrand, whatever are you doing here? How could you shift here from Rosetta? Why, not an hour ago you were gaping at the stone and no doubt wondering how the other side pulled off that little coup.”

“That’s an understatement,” said LeGrand. “It was no small matter. Who knows how they managed it, but Lord save us, there’s been a transformation—a grand transformation. It’s the very thing we live in fear of each and every day of our lives. The guardians spin out one scenario after another, the research takes years, but we are quite good at it now. The agents stand their watch on all the key milieus, waiting for new orders to come in at any time. It seems I have been given mine.”

“You mean to say you were pulled out and then immediately sent on a new mission?”

“Quite…” LeGrand ran the back of his thick hand over his brow, clearly distressed.

“Come on, Robert. Let’s walk him to the elevator and get up to the lab where it’s more comfortable.” Even as they started, something seemed to come to LeGrand and he looked from one to the other with an expression of great urgency.

“They must keep the Arch spinning,” he said quickly. “Don’t shut anything down. Can they hear me?” He looked around as they entered the elevator, and Maeve toggled the intercom button as the doors closed.

“Kelly?” She had a worried expression on her face. “Are you there?”

“Of course I’m here,” came the reply through the overhead speaker, but it had a strange resonance to it, as if the transmission was suffering interference, possibly from the Arch.

Maeve let out a long breath. “Good then… We have a guest, and we’re coming up now. All is well here. We’ll be there in a minute or two.”

“Roger that… Roger, Roger…”

She could not tell if Kelly was just repeating the phrase or if there was a feedback loop in the system. LeGrand looked up at the speaker, his eyes narrowing with concern.

“Dissonance,” said LeGrand. “They must keep the Nexus open. Tell them not to reduce the power. The Arch must keep spinning.”

“He hears you,” Maeve assured him. “But what was that you said? Dissonance? What do you mean?”

“No time to explain,” said LeGrand, smiling at the irony of his statement. “Don’t you understand? There’s been a grand transformation. Everything has changed… everything. The only stable wells in the flow of time are the Nexus Points that were open at the instant the Heisenberg Wave was generated. We’re in one now, and you must do everything possible to preserve it against the flow. Otherwise…”

He gave them a long look, his eyes reflecting both fear and sorrow as he spoke. “Otherwise we lose our last hope,” he said darkly. “Don’t you see? We’re an island now, in a raging stream of catastrophe and chaos. And time is running out.”

24

The visitor was still eyeing the facility like a patron touring a museum.

“The original site,” he had said when he entered. “The Founders… All four together at once! This is more than any man could have hoped for in a lifetime. I am truly honored.”

Paul and Kelly were quite surprised when they saw Robert and Maeve escorting the man into the lab. Now they were gathered about the conference table in a room just off the main lab complex. Robert made the introductions, while Maeve watched with a sullen expression on her face. The professor recalled the heat of that last discussion with LeGrand, and he hoped the meeting would not soon disintegrate into a shouting match.

“So,” he concluded. “You’ve come with news about this transformation. It was the stone, wasn’t it. You see—I told you the Rosetta Stone was a crucial touchstone in the record of time. Without it we lose our knowledge of 5000 years of human history.”

“I’m afraid we lose a good deal more than that,” LeGrand said darkly. “In fact, we lose everything. The whole summation of our culture and civilization is swept away, lost, forgotten. Only the barest fragments remain, like the monuments of Egypt were pale reflections of that culture in our time.”

“Come now,” said Nordhausen, “it can’t be all that bad. Surely we lose our understanding of the past, but how does the loss of the stone bear upon our future?”

“You know quite well how, professor.” LeGrand’s grey eyes flashed as he spoke. “It was you who started this whole notion of the stone being an essential element for communication. Why, you were about to tell me all about it when we first met in Egypt—about Rasil, the Messenger; about the scroll you found in his pack.”

“You knew about that?”

“Not the details. Research had to brief me just now, before I was sent back.” He looked at the clock on the opposite wall, noting the steady forward progression of the second hand. The sight of it seemed to renew his agitation. “You’ve kept the Arch spinning, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” said Paul, “but we’re on internal generators. The connection to our outside power reserve appears to be severed. We’ve only a few hours fuel, I’m afraid.”

LeGrand’s eyes widened. “You’ve lost more than the connection to your local power company,” he said quickly.

“Yes,” said Robert. “We tried the radio, but the storm is playing havoc with the signal.”

“Storm?”

“We were up in the observation dome a moment ago,” said Paul.

“Yes,” Robert put in. “The whole city was shrouded in darkness. There was a freak storm raging—really quite unusual. In fact, I meant to go out and have a look.”

“No!” LeGrand nearly shouted, extending an arm to ward off some unseen evil. “You mustn’t leave the safety of the Nexus—none of you may leave. Don’t you understand? There’s been a transformation, and the whole of the world you knew—”

“Is gone,” Paul finished flatly. They all looked at him. “You weren’t looking at a storm, Robert. That was the frontier of annihilation—just a thin border zone at the periphery of our Nexus Point. Beyond it the world outside is likely to be very different from anything in our experience.”

“Yes,” said LeGrand. “Beyond the Nexus is the chaos of transformation. The world you knew is gone—all of it. The Nexus is a bubble in the stream. There are only three left that we know of, and this is one of them. The other two exist in the future, at our main operations center, such as it remains, and one more auxiliary site that we keep very well hidden. They were the only operations we happened to have going when the Heisenberg Wave struck, and I don’t know how much longer they will remain active. It was mere chance that I was scheduled for retraction, you see. I usually dally about a day or so after the stone is discovered—at least I did that on my first two missions to Rosetta. This time I told the messenger that I wanted to be pulled out as soon as possible. Fate would have it that my retraction saw one of our own Arch systems running at the time of the transformation. They sent me here to you because I was one of the very few travelers who were protected by a Nexus when the alarm came in. ”

“Only three systems left?” Nordhausen scratched his head. “I don’t understand. Why don’t your associates simply turn on the rest. Surely you must have others.”

“Once…” LeGrand seemed to sag with the admission. “We had twenty operational Arch complexes, but none of those sites exist now.”

Maeve could no longer restrain herself. “Good riddance to the lot of them! You see what your meddling has achieved? Are you telling me the world outside this complex is gone as well? Are you saying my Subaru isn’t parked in the lot outside; that I can’t make a stop at Peet’s on the way home this evening; that there’s no city out there at all?”

“I really don’t know,” said LeGrand. “I was pulled forward and immediately sent into the ready room for a quick briefing. I have no idea what lies beyond these walls, but I know one thing—if any one of us should step beyond the influence of the Arch field, we would immediately be exposed to the full force of Paradox—annihilation may be too strong a word, but perhaps not. Who can say what place you may hold in the Meridian taking shape out there? Who can say if any of you exist there at all?”

Maeve’s hand was shaking. “So you’ve finally done it,” she said with real anger. “It’s just as I feared.”

“On the contrary,” said LeGrand. “This was not our doing. Would we wish such a reversal on ourselves? No—our adversaries have brought this calamity upon us.”

“Just as you did to them on that very first mission, correct?” Maeve held his gaze, and LeGrand took a long breath.

“Yes,” he admitted. “That first mission to the Hejaz worked a transformation. When you prevented the destruction of the second train, you set a new template for all future time. You didn’t notice it in your own lives. The change rippled forward from 1917, but the effects did not gather strength until 2010, the date when Palma was to erupt as a result of the plot hatched by Ra’id Husan al Din. With your help, we stopped that catastrophe from occurring, and then set a watch on that island to secure it against any future tampering. Can you blame us? You, of all people, should understand, Miss Lindford. If the Palma event were not reversed, the whole of Western civilization would have spiraled down into oblivion. We had to act to save ourselves—to save it all—Christendom, Western culture, art, literature, the sciences—all the things you love so dearly—would you rather we left them to the ashes?”

“They were meant to die,” said Paul. “It was all meant to end at Palma, wasn’t it… The world we made possible was never meant to be. And this whole affair, this Time war, was the result of it all. Our adversaries, as you call them, were simply trying to preserve the integrity of the original Meridian, Maeve. I know this has crossed your own mind as well. Look… it’s difficult for us to admit it but, to use an old phrase, we’ve all been living on borrowed time.”

LeGrand looked from one to the other. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he pleaded. “That’s why I’m here. We’ve one more chance to set things right! We found out what they were doing, you see, only too late to intervene. You were on to it, professor. Your little trip to the British Museum put us on the trail. It was the scroll, you see, the rubbing.”

Nordhausen gave him a penetrating look. “Yes,” he said. “I always did suspect that the image on that scroll was a rubbing. It was clearly not penned in ink or created by any other drawing instrument. I determined that it was a rubbing from a carved stone, just as you say.”

“Well you were quite correct, professor. Why we were so blind to the scheme amazes us even now. We put our faith in technology, and thought our enemies would do the same. We had every confidence that we could best the radicals. We were better at it than they were, and we had the benefit of your original research as well.” He pointed at Paul.

“Imagine our surprise when you took that fall in Wadi Rumm and discovered a working Arch, in the form of a well, that relied on something as deviously simple as an Oklo reaction as its primary power source.” LeGrand’s eyebrows raised over his grey eyes as he hurried along.

“We were winning, you see. They built their own version of the Arch, but we found it, and destroyed it. And each time they built another we destroyed it again, until we were certain we had done them all in. We had them hounded in to the far corners of the world, just like old Osama Bin Ladin from your era. He set the model. He gave up his cell phone and relied on couriers—a decidedly low tech approach to the struggle that proved quite effective. He sat in his cave and remained a thorn in America’s side for years, inspiring a whole generation of new insurgents as your government blundered into one grandiose military action after another.”

“Nothing new in that,” said Robert. “Islam has been guided by so called ‘hidden imams’ for centuries. Whenever the culture comes under stress from external forces, it generates these mythical figures: hidden imams, the Mahdi they believe will emerge to lead them to victory. Then we get Fedayeen warriors rallying to the call of jihad in an almost antibody like reaction against the outside force.”

“If only the leaders of the West understood that,” said LeGrand. “They have no idea how resilient these religious beliefs can be.”

“Glad to see you’ve had a change of heart,” said Maeve, but with little warmth.

“Oh, I can agree that we were wrong with our methods at times,” said LeGrand, “but Western culture was simply too shining a force in the world to be contaminated and destroyed by these radicals. If that meant war—unjust war, I’ll admit—then so be it. Yes, you will be quick to lecture me on imperialism, colonialism and all the other evils that the spread of our culture engendered. But we soon came to the conclusion that empire had its benefits—benefits that outweighed the liabilities.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Maeve. “Empire is wonderful—when you’re a citizen; when you’re on the inside. It’s not so lovely when you are on the receiving end of the bombs.”

“I’ll concede that. But what would you hand me in place of Hiroshima? Would you forgo the bomb if it meant a billion people in Southeast Asia would live under the tyranny of Imperial Japan? And what would you hand me in place of Dresden? Weren’t the concentration camps at Auschwitz enough? Cultures clash, nations struggle with one another in the stream of history, and one side prevails. We’re offering social equities, free markets, capitalism, democracy—”

“Levy Silver,” said Maeve, her arms folded in opposition.

“I don’t understand,” said LeGrand.

“…and some of us were mostly brass under a thin film of gold,” said Maeve. “…A poem I read once. Free markets? Capitalism? Haven’t you studies the history of the financial shenanigans that brought on the second great depression? The problem with all the wonderful things that empire provides is that millions have to die for them. Democracy? Equity? The West is guilty of a thousand felonies on that count, monsieur LeGrand.”

“Yes, yes—we went through all this before, didn’t we? But look at the time!” His eyes flashed up at the clock, laden with anxiety and emotion. “We can’t sit here and quibble over the morality of our culture—it’s dying! Yes, that means the poetry you’re so very fond of, my dear—Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer and all the rest. They don’t exactly resonate with the edicts of Sharia and the Koran! Now please—just hear me out. We’ve come to you again, in our last extreme. The whole thing has come full circle. You chose once, and now you must make a choice again. Will you help us? Because if you do not, then you forfeit the entire heritage of Western culture. Nothing of it will survive this hour if you do not act to save it.”

LeGrand looked from one to another, pleading, and it was Paul who spoke first.

“What is it you have come to ask of us?”

“A mission—from here—just like the first time. This is the first wound in the flow of Time, here and now. No other Arch exists prior to this point on the continuum. They can do what they might in years to come, but from here you can act with impunity. No one else can interfere. Do you understand?”

“Act with impunity—yes, I suppose I do understand. But what would you have us do?”

LeGrand hesitated for the barest instant, then blurted out his response, desperate to persuade. “You must find the touchstone! That’s the key. The professor had it by the earlobe all along. It was Mister Kelly’s idea—the RAM bank, the touchstone database. If you are going to change the history, how will you preserve a record of the way things were? That’s why you sent out your Golems—to keep watch, find variations in the data and warn you of a crisis like this. Well it’s come, and what will you do about it? You’ve got to find their touchstone, that’s what. Find it and destroy it before we loose the whole.”

Part IX

Decision

“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision”

—Joel: 3:14

25

Kelly was the first to speak, gesturing to the lab complex as he did so. “The Golems are not operating,” he said flatly. “We have no way of identifying a variation in the history without them.”

“Yes,” said LeGrand, “but you do have the original RAM bank still operating, and it has an imprint of the history as known to this point on the Meridian. That research will be essential… if our plan is to succeed.”

“Research?” Maeve leaned heavily on the table. “You mean to say you want us to find this thing, this touchstone, by using the data stored in our RAM bank as a guide? That could take years!”

LeGrand smiled wanly. “Possibly—just as the research on the Pushpoint that reversed Palma could have taken years as well. But we gave you a nudge in the right direction, didn’t we? I have come to aid your quest again. I can put you on the target, if you’ll hear me out. The rest will be up to you.”

Maeve pursed her lips, obviously struggling with the whole notion of using the Arch again to support this man’s plans. “How do we know you’re telling us the truth? How do we know you’re not just manipulating us into furthering your war plan?

“I was wondering if that would come up,” said LeGrand. “Fair question. As of this moment, you have only my word. If you’d care to test my assertions concerning the world outside the influence of this Nexus, be my guest. I would not advise it, however. Paradox is quite unforgiving.”

Paul intervened, seeing that the present line of argument would lead them nowhere. “You have information for us? You have a plan?”

“We hope as much.” Then LeGrand turned to Nordhausen. “We are really in your debt, professor. The moment we realized our adversaries were using a decidedly low tech solution, we immediately knew where it had to be hidden—give or take a few hundred years.”

Nordhausen squinted, thinking hard. “In the past,” he said. “It would have to placed as far back on the Meridian as possible.”

“Of course!” LeGrand smiled. “And what would you say is the oldest locus on the Meridian that would offer us promise?”

“There are hundreds of ancient sites that might qualify,” said Nordhausen, “but considering the Assassins were using hieroglyphics, let’s confine our search to Egypt.”

“Correct again!” LeGrand clapped his hands, obviously relieved to have the discussion moving in his direction, but still giving Maeve a cautious glance now and again.

“Well,” Robert scratched the back of his neck. “We could have a look at the Step Pyramids—they’re the oldest Pyramids known… About 2700 B.C.”

“We’ll have to do better than that,” said LeGrand. “Besides. The pyramids are too obvious. They stand out like a sore thumb in history, begging to be excavated. This touchstone, if indeed one exists, would have to be kept secret—hidden from the prying eyes of a thousand generations.”

“Then we would have to move to the Pre-Dynastic times. The oldest-known temple in Egypt is at Tell Ibrahim Awad in the eastern Nile Delta—at least as far as we know now. It was the dedicated to the God Thoth, who appeared in the benevolent figure of a baboon.” His eyes flashed as another thought occurred to him. “Thoth was also the Egyptian god of writing!”

“Interesting,” said LeGrand. “How old?”

“About 3400 B.C.—Before its discovery, the oldest-known temple was at Hierakonpolis, which dated to 3200 B.C.”

“A good candidate. We looked at it. There was nothing there.”

“See here,” Nordhausen gave him a frustrated look. “Why make this a game of twenty questions? If you have information on the location of the stone, then speak up, man!”

“I was told to sound you out and discover your thinking on this matter before divulging our best guess. But, as time is pressing, I will tell you that we believe the touchstone lies at the base of the Sphinx.”

“At Giza?” Nordhausen gave him an incredulous look. “That was thought to be built by Khafre, around 2600 B.C. There’s a stela erected between the legs of the beast that bears his name.”

“It was placed there by Tuthmosis IV in 1400 B.C., long after the monument was built. We believe the Sphinx is far older than Khafre’s pyramid at Giza, and that he had nothing whatsoever to do with its making. Oh, you will find similar rumors in your RAM bank data if you look. The work of Dr. Robert Schoch, John West, and the noted archeologist Michael Poe all assert the Sphinx may date well into the Paleolithic.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Nordhausen. “None of that research has been proven. It’s mere speculation. Besides, the use of hieroglyphics was developed in the Old Kingdom, much later. Even if there were a hidden chamber beneath the Sphinx, as many have suggested, why would they hide their touchstone there? You said yourself that the pyramids were too obvious a target. The Sphinx is even more prominent, more compelling.”

“Good arguments,” said LeGrand. “Our research people made them as well. But a lot happens between your time and ours. We have a great deal more information to bring to the quest. Let me be brief and say that we believe there is a hidden chamber beneath the Sphinx—or at least the place where it once rested.”

That last remark took the professor off his kilter. “What’s that? Are you saying the Sphinx was destroyed in the years ahead?”

“Yes, it was destroyed, but not in the years to come.”

Now Robert was beside himself. “That’s ridiculous. Certainly it was damaged. Why, the French soldiers used it to calibrate their artillery fires during their expedition to Egypt. It’s a pity I didn’t get a chance to see them try that little stunt. I would have knocked them senseless! Speak plainly—was the monument destroyed or not?”

“It was destroyed thousands of years ago, when the Nile floods were so severe one year that they changed the course of the river itself.”

“Don’t be daft, man. The Sphinx exists in our time! What are you talking about?”

“Well, it should be obvious that I’m not talking about the Sphinx at Giza.”

Maeve had been listening silently, inwardly amused as the two men jousted over the history. Now she spoke up, determined to move the discussion to some conclusion.

“They come in pairs, Robert. Have you ever seen the image of a Sphinx carved without another in tandem?”

Nordhausen turned to her, more to see if she was serious by checking the expression on her face than anything else. He could quickly see that her remark was not made in jest.

“Exactly!” LeGrand was quick to reinforce this new track. “They come in pairs. Well said. To put it plainly—we found the mate to the Sphinx you know today. It was located on the eastern bank of the Nile, directly opposite the existing monument. Together they served as the guardians of the lower Nile—a kind of gateway, if you will. It was destroyed when the Nile flooded and changed its course. The remains of the monument were carried off by the locals after that, to use in other construction projects. Nothing remains at the site—at least where we believe the second Sphinx once rested. In fact, the city of Cairo has completely covered the area.”

“Amazing,” said Nordhausen. “And you have confirmation on all this?”

“We are relatively certain of the location, in spatial terms. And we know, for a fact, that both monuments did indeed have a hidden chamber beneath them. You’ve heard the pronouncement of Edgar Cayce. He claimed there was a hidden chamber beneath the western Sphinx, the one at Giza, that was hermetically sealed. He said it contained hidden knowledge of the history of the world, dating from a remote golden age the Egyptians called Zep Tepi. A remarkable man, mister Cayce. He was correct, of course—only he got the location wrong. The history chamber was hidden beneath the eastern Sphinx—which is long since gone. Now… does that sound like a clever place to hide a record of events—carved in stone—so a man might take a rubbing on papyrus, and carry it about in a completely unbreakable code? No modern man has ever set eyes on this second Sphinx. It is lost, a distant rumor whispered across the ages, yet it is as close, in practical terms, as the cellar of some unknowing peasant in the suburbs of Cairo.”

The silence in the room was a testament to the impact of LeGrand’s revelation. The professor could hardly believe it, yet he was torn between his natural skepticism and the desire to immediately plumb the depths of this new research. He was the first to voice the obvious conclusion, and the reason for LeGrand’s desperate visit.

“Then you mean for us to go there? You have the location?”

“You have numbers?” Kelly spoke next.

“We can give you the exact spatial location, and a good read on the temporal locus as well.” LeGrand smiled, convinced that his job of persuasion had been successful.

“A good read?” Kelly wasn’t happy. “It can take an Arion system days to crunch temporal coordinates. The farther back you go, the more processing time you need. We’ll be lucky to keep the Arch spinning for another two hours!”

“We took care of that for you. It was a bit of a task. The trick was not the calculations, but how to get them to you. I am deeply honored to present you this, Mr. Ramer.”

LeGrand reached into his cape pouch and produced something, a small shiny disk that Paul immediately recognized.

“I believe you called these things DVDs, am I correct?” LeGrand extended the jewel case to Kelly, handing him the disk.

“Where did you get that?” Paul seemed incredulous now.

“You know very well where we got it,” said LeGrand. “You and the professor were quite upset about it.”

“You mean you ran a mission to retrieve DVD media from our time?” Kelly voiced the obvious conclusion.

“That would have been easy,” LeGrand explained. “But it would have taken time and, as simple as it sounds, it would have been risky. So, we encrypted the data in the video stream of this disk when we found it—the one we already had.” His eyes flashed at Kelly now, with a knowing glance. “We timed everything to sync well with the computers of your age. Now all you have to do is play this DVD through your system control module, and the entire operation will be perfectly coordinated as the video plays itself out. It was really quite devious. The R & D people are to be complimented.”

“I don’t understand,” said Kelly.

“You will,” LeGrand said softly. “At least I hope you will.” His eyes softened as he spoke.

Paul looked up, a conclusion plan on his face. “It’s the DVD we placed in your memorial site, Kelly. That’s why the grave site was tampered with. The Assassins were on to your plan as well, and they were trying to get at the DVD to prevent its discovery. Am I right?”

“Close,” said LeGrand with a smile. “It may be that the Assassins have a clue to what we are about to attempt, but they had nothing to do with the incident at Mr. Ramer’s memorial. We did that. Our agent in place for this milieu was instructed to secure it at all costs. We had to be sure we got to the DVD first, you see. It caused a bit of a ripple in the Meridian, and yes, the danger to your friend was very real, but you and the professor fixed that by publishing the backup you had hidden here in the lab. We kept the original, and we encoded it with our mission parameters… And there you have it.” He pointed to the disk in Kelly’s hand.

26

They all looked at the DVD. Paul remembered the moment when he first discovered it, while archiving data from the Palma mission. Watching Kelly working in the lab as he struggled to get the travelers back on target after the disastrous keystroke error that sent them to the late Cretaceous had brought a tear to his eye. He knew then that it would be the only fitting tribute he could offer at Kelly’s memorial.

“How far back is it,” he said. His eyes fixed on the disk. The prospect of another mission was daunting, but he knew they would have to try. Robert and Maeve had only just returned from Rosetta. He was the only other experienced traveler here with a quantum matrix signature on file in the system database. Kelly had never shifted using this equipment.

“A bit beyond the excursion to Rosetta,” said LeGrand. But not nearly as far back as your runabout after the KT event. Quite remarkable, if I may say.”

“How far,” Paul asked again, and his tone said get to the point without any uncertainty.

LeGrand heard the impatience, the urgency in Paul’s voice, and was suddenly very serious. “We make it 10,500 B.C…. or thereabouts.”

Maeve had an uncomfortable expression on her face. “Good then,” she said. “Are you ready, Monsieur?”

“What… Me?” LeGrand gave her a bemused smile. “Oh, I’d love to go,” he explained, “but it’s really quite impossible. I can’t pull a double shift, I’m afraid. Nothing has been programmed, and time is already waiting for me back home.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to some unseen future. “She won’t allow me to switch trains here. It’s out of the question.”

“Just as I suspected,” said Maeve unhappily. “So you want one of us to go in your place. You want the burden of all we might accomplish, and the blood, on our hands.”

“Really, Madame, must you be so gloomy?”

Nordhausen spoke up, tossing a new idea into the argument. “Why don’t you just raid the location of the site in your time? If you know where it is, just get together an assault team and storm the place.”

LeGrand stroked his chin. “You don’t understand,” he said. “We’re no longer in control of our time. They are! Besides, even if we could destroy the site in our time it would do us no good. The damage to the Meridian has already been done by then. No… The moment is now… the question is now. The other side has just moved a Pushpoint, something very old, and lost and utterly insignificant, save for its effect on the discovery of the Rosetta stone. We haven’t the time to find out where or how they accomplished that, so we came up with this counterstrategy as a last hope. You only get one chance, you know. It’s a bit like Judo. Your adversary makes an attack, and you must respond, then and there, and find the leverage to use his own energy against him. Soon the transformation will be complete, Paradox will have run its course, and we would be living in a nightmare world again—believe me, I know of what I speak.”

The look in his eyes revealed real fear now. “Islam will have spread the world over,” he said softly. “The West will be overthrown… everything, democracy, capitalism, the artwork, music, literature—remember what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamiyan? That was just an appetizer. They will tolerate no other religion but Islam… There is no God but God, and Allah is his name, and Mohamed is his prophet—over, final, done. You have no idea what it will be like. It’s not going to be a simple book burning raid here and there. Fahrenheit 451 is nothing compared to the destruction of our culture that will follow if Palma is allowed to re-occur. That’s what they did, you see. They’ve worked it so that Palma happens—just as it was supposed to. Oh, believe me, we’ve done our very best to prevent that. It’s been a real struggle, but we’ve held them at bay. Now the advantage conferred by their hieroglyphic code is just enough to give them the edge.”

“Yes!” said Nordhausen. “It was written on the stone… here, let me remember… ‘Through the ages now he comes to a mystery: one death gives birth, a great wind upon the face of the sea, in a place forever hidden where the lions roar: ‘mine is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.’ A Great wind upon the face of the sea: that must be the tsunami sequence generated by Palma!“

“A place forever hidden where the lions roar,” said Paul. “That has to be a reference to the Sphinx—or both of them.”

“Mine is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.” Nordhausen continued. “An obvious reference to the past, where they’ve hidden a record of all future events. But what does the first part mean?” He looked about, hoping to find the answer with one of the others.

“We believe it refers to Mr. Kelly,” said LeGrand matter of factly.

Kelly looked at him, confused? “Me?”

“I’m afraid so,” said LeGrand. “It was your death that prevented the others from acting to reverse Palma. ‘One death gives birth—to the whole of their dastardly plan, and the destruction of the entire Eastern Seaboard of this continent. That was what we sent Mr. Graves to undo—to prevent that one death—your death.”

He reached up to wipe the sheen of sweat from his brow. “But now they’ve found another lever,” he said. “It changes everything again. This last twist is fatal to our cause—unless we act here and now. We will be reduced to a bare handful of dissidents in our time, hiding out, constantly on the run, hounded into caves and hidden sanctuaries. Storm the site with an assault team? Try showing your white unshaven face in Old Cairo today, in the district known as Maadi, if you get the significance of that name, and see how you fare! Do you honestly think we could get to the place if this transformation takes effect? The Assassins have it completely encircled. The Fedayeen commandos guard it night and day. Their secret police are everywhere—or at least they will be if we don’t act to prevent them. From this moment forward they will begin to use the advantage they have gained. They’ll post a watch on the site, send agents all throughout the continuum to guard it.”

“Then won’t it be guarded now?” said Robert. “I mean, on this mission you have planned to the second Sphinx?”

“Perhaps,” LeGrand admitted, “but we’re targeting them just as they establish the place—a secret chamber beneath the Sphinx where their scribe will carve out the key Nexus Points in the whole of human history. That’s what they were using as a guideline. That’s why we could never figure out how they could still resist us when we destroyed the last of their Arch complexes in our time. They’re damn conniving—cunning beyond our ken. They used these Oklo reactions to build hidden transfer gates—they call them wells. We’ve only found the one thanks to you, at Wadi Rumm, but there have to be others, and we’ve no time to look for them now.”

“And what if we destroy this hidden chamber? That’s what you want us to do, correct?” Paul wanted to get a glimpse of the outcome should they decide to undertake the mission.

“If you can,” said LeGrand. “It’s underground, and we’ve enough information to formulate a possible plan of attack. We found it in their own literature… the hidden stream that carries the walkers to the chamber of Time. The whole place is underground, you see, but it’s very close to the Nile. That area has been a problem in Cairo for generations. The water is leeching through the limestone and migrating under the city. We did research—no time to go into it all, but they’re using a series of locks on the river—the underground stream. All it will take is a little nudge, just as it should. The Pushpoint is one of the levers that opens the locks. We’re certain of it.”

“And these locks existed that long ago?” Paul had an incredulous look on his face.

“Only one,” LeGrand confirmed. “The others were built over the long generation as the river intruded on the location of their site. That’s why we’re sure of the Pushpoint. There’s only one lock at this target date.”

Silence enfolded the room, broken only by the hum of the lab consoles.

“Very well,” said Paul, looking at Maeve. “The others have just returned. I’ll go.”

LeGrand smiled warmly. “Very noble. It is just what we would expect of you,” he said. “But I’m afraid that your preparation might take more time than we have.” He eyed the clock again.

“But there’s already a quantum signature for me in our database here.” Paul repeated the logic that had led him to volunteer. “And Robert and Maeve have only just returned. They’ll need time to recover.”

“All true,” said LeGrand, “but first we would have to re-calibrate your signature, and then merge the data with the mission parameters we have programmed on the disk. There would be changes and, as Mister Ramer would be quick to point out, that would take computer time—more than we can spare.”

Kelly looked at him, a realization dawning in his eyes. “Then it’s me you want,” he said matter of factly. “You already have my signature encoded on the DVD, don’t you.”

LeGrand nodded, his breath abated, waiting as he watched the others for any sign of protest. Paul could see that his hand was shaking a bit as he fingered the hem of his gray cloak.

“Let’s get started then,” said Kelly. “You’ll have to resample my signature when I’m exposed to the particle stream, but if I know my methods and procedures like I think I’m going to, you’ll have an algorithm already encoded on the DVD to handle the data merge.”

“Precisely,” said LeGrand, greatly relieved.

Kelly was already edging his swivel chair up to the control console, all business. Maeve had a pleading expression on her face, close to tears, but she said nothing. There was a tense silence in the room. Kelly was opening the jewel case to remove the DVD while he toggled system switches.

“I’ll clear the necessary RAM,” he said. “Paul, would you check on the particle infusion chamber? I’m worried about the quantum fuel situation. Robert, you can be useful if you would get with Mister LeGrand here and figure out what I’m supposed to do. I’ll be half an hour here setting this thing up, and that won’t leave me much time…”

He looked at Maeve, and saw the tear streaking her cheek, his own eyes glassy as he swallowed hard. “And would you come down to the Arch with me, love?” His voice broke as he spoke those last words.

Robert leaned in to Paul. “Will it really be that dangerous?”

Paul just looked at him. Then he took him by the arm, walking him away from the lab console. “It’s like this,” he said softly. “If he’s fails the mission, we’re all exposed to Paradox, and who knows what will happen when the Nexus dissipates here in a few hours.”

“And if he succeeds?”

“In that event it will be Kelly’s fate on the line. The transformation he works will begin over 12,000 years ago, and ripple forward. It’s very likely that events will stand as we see them now, and there will be no attack at Palma by Ra’id Husan al Din. Understand? He’ll be the one exposed to Paradox again, just as he was after that first mission.”

“But we’ll still have the DVD,” said Robert. “And we published the whole thing to the web. If that survives, what’s the problem?”

“The DVD has location data for Kelly to be pulled from the lab on May 28th, 2010, at precisely 4:10 A.M. It’s September now, and he’ll be somewhere east of the Nile, in the year 10500 B.C.”

Robert’s eyes suddenly registered the dilemma. “Then the Order will just have to intervene again—like they did the last time. Don’t they have his coordinates on that DVD? I’ll speak to LeGrand!”

“Quiet down,” said Paul. He took a deep breath and looked his friend square in the face. “They would have to know exactly where he is—exactly—in both space and time, if they are to intervene again.”

“No problem,” Robert reached for one last rope, even though he could feel himself sinking into the realization of what Paul was driving at. “We’ll pull him back here and they can just scoop him from the Arch when he returns. That’s a location that we can cement in the history from this moment forward. I’ll resolve here and now to publish the exact coordinates, just like we did the DVD. As for the time, they will know that from our own system chronometers when he re-materializes here.”

Paul sighed, a look on his face that said he wished it all could be so. “He can’t re-materialize here,” he said, his eyes watering over. “We haven’t the quantum fuel to get him there and back again. Even the outbound shift is going to be cutting it very thin. Besides, this is a Nexus Point—a conditional Nexus, Robert. It is temporary. Time is waiting for the outcome. If he succeeds, and Palma never happens, then we never had a reason to run this mission. So the Nexus will dissipate rather quickly.“

“But we came back from the Hejaz on the first mission,” Robert protested.

“That was the first mission,” said Paul. “The initial breach of time was a grand event, a first cause, if you will. It was therefore not subject to the full weight of Paradox, and we were able to return because our place in the continuum was not altered. But that was not so for Kelly. If Palma doesn’t happen, then Graves never came back to save him, and Kelly is… gone… Nothing that fails to survive the Paradox sweep after Palma will survive in this Nexus when it dissipates. The Meridian we were in when we first returned from the Palma mission will be restored—only this time they won’t have Kelly tucked away safely in the future for us… And this time, when we stand at that memorial site to remember what he did for us, they’ll be no one to steal up behind us and dance on his own grave.”

27

“So we’re back to this,” said Robert, with a fallen expression. “It’s Kelly again, at the edge of annihilation, and all because of my meddling.”

“Why do you think that way?” Paul tried to console him, but Robert just shook his head.

“I had to have my precious manuscript… had to see Old London to breathe in the milieu of Sherlock Holmes. Now look at it. The moment I stepped into the grand gallery of the British Museum and saw… or rather felt the obvious vacancy there, I knew something was amiss. The Rosetta stone was gone, and I knew in my gut that I had something to do with it. It was me, Paul; my damnable fascination with history, and books, and opera, and all the rest. I sat there in the bar and toasted with Oscar Wilde! I consorted with Primes, as Maeve would have it, and now look at this affair.”

“Don’t be silly, Robert. We’ve already determined that your missions have caused no significant change in the Meridian. You merely happened upon this Time war, that’s all. It was mere synchronicity. The real culprits are the terrorists—on either side—who keep meddling with the history.”

“I suppose,” said Robert, needing some consolation now. “But what makes us any different, Paul? We’re the ones meddling now, and we’re paying a hell of a price for it—we’re giving them Kelly, for God’s sake, or humanity’s sake—and not even that. We’re taking sides here. Anything we do to save the things we love will wreak havoc on another culture. It’s maddening!”

Paul was silent, the gravity of his friend’s words finally reaching him on an emotional level. “Perhaps Maeve was right all along,” he said softly. “Perhaps we should have never started this thing, but it seems that this mission will finish it—one way or another. Yes, we are taking sides, I suppose. But what else can we do? We’re being asked to choose now—between the promises made by two possible futures. We have an eye on one, as it springs from our own culture, our own understanding. We haven’t seen the other, a world ruled by fundamental Islam, but we’ve seen enough of it to hazard a guess as to what that would be like. And we have LeGrand’s word as well. In the end, this is Kelly’s choice. If he wants to do this, then how can we stand in his way? In spite of all of that, there is still some truth to what you say. This has to stop. We cannot allow any future meddling in the Meridian again. After this, I’m shutting the whole thing down.”

~

Kelly was half an hour getting ready. The sudden realization that he was about to embark on a mission had primed his system with the adrenaline of anxiety. He was burning it off, fidgeting with the system console to be certain all the equipment was in order. He cleared as much RAM as he could find, and keyed in some backup subroutines.

All the while the great weight of what he was about to attempt began to drag on him. A read of the DVD video for embedded data produced the coordinates, in both space and time. He found himself staring at the numbers, disbelieving them. The temporal coordinates were going to take him over ten thousand years into the past! He was going to take one small step in the Arch tunnel and emerge in pre-dynastic Egypt! What would he do there? What would he find?

LeGrand had come to his side, his eyes begging an audience, with a look that was almost reverent. “Mister Kelly,” he whispered. “May I have a word with you on the mission?”

Kelly caught Maeve out of the corner of his eye. She had come back with his costuming, a simple Arabic robe, and she was trying to stay busy in the anteroom, fussing through her accessories, a headpiece, braided sash and sandals, but he could feel her intermittent gaze on him, and knew that she was keenly aware of LeGrand, and very uneasy.

“When you arrive,” LeGrand began, “you will be able to clearly sight the location of the sphinx by looking for the moon. Understand? Just turn toward the light. You’ll be arriving at night, for your own security, and you should be able to see the monument easily enough. There will be a watercourse that flows to the cleft between the lion’s front paws. Make your way to that depression, and approach the monument by following the stream.” He smiled, the weight of his cheeks seeming to strain with the effort, but his grey eyes held real warmth. “Do you swim?”

“Swim? Yes. I do a workout at the YMCA every other month.”

“Splendid. You may have to do a bit of that as you approach the sphinx. The stream will enter the monument—we aren’t sure exactly how, but you’ll figure it out. I have every confidence!”

Kelly digested that a moment, then asked: “And this lock on the waterway you mentioned—it’s meant to regulate the flow of the watercourse?”

“We believe so. The water flows toward the monument, but when the river is at high flood stage, the lock prevents the interior chambers from being flooded. If you can see that it fails to do that, some time before the dawn, then we believe the mission might have a good chance for success.”

“Before dawn?” Kelly gave him a searching look. “Let me understand this: you say the lock regulates the river at high flood stage. Then the flood comes with the dawn?”

LeGrand hesitated briefly, his face soon set with resolve. “I’m afraid so.”

“How can you know that?”

“We have a way of taking a quick peek at things—don’t ask me to explain it, but Research tells me this is what will happen.”

“And you expect the flood to damage the monument?”

“We hope as much. Our research has determined that the ground beneath the eastern sphinx is somewhat compromised. The river is actually intruding and infiltrating below the monument in deep aquifers. There is a zone of instability there. If the flood waters are allowed to penetrate to the hidden inner chambers of the sphinx, we believe that the pressure may just be enough to… to cause a collapse.” His eyes held Kelly’s now, waiting.

“I see…” Kelly looked down, his finger tapping aimlessly at the side of a keyboard. “And where will I be when this happens?”

“A difficult question,” said LeGrand. “We went round and round with it ourselves. Mr. Graves was a real advocate for you, of course. Many others as well. The problem is this, however: we just don’t know what you might do once you arrive, or what may happen to you. You know how things go. You reach to tie a loose strap on your sandal and lose your footing—that sort of thing. There’s an infinity of variation between the setting of the moon and the rising sun. How could we hope to account for it all?”

“Of course,” said Kelly, the numbers man acceding to the impossibility inherent in the math. There was no way they could write a retraction algorithm that would be able to predict his exact location at the key moment. “Then you’re timing the retraction to the particle decay?”

“It’s the only chance we have,” LeGrand agreed quickly. “I’ve had a word with Mister Dorland, and he seems confident that he can get just the right infusion in the particle chamber.”

“Right,” said Kelly, but his tone was hollow. He knew that Paul would do his best, but the quantum fuel situation was grave now. Even if there was enough left to pull him out, the situation could be chaotic. He’d be underground, with a flood tide careening through the chambers of the sphinx. How would he escape?

LeGrand seemed to sense his thoughts and spoke softly, his voice laden with emotion. “We know we may be asking a great deal of you, Mister Kelly…”

“Yes.” A voice spoke from behind them and they turned to see Maeve. “You put it lightly, but that’s about the size of it, isn’t it? You people couldn’t leave things be. You had to have them your way, and now you’re going to ask a great deal indeed. You’re dumping the whole thing on us—on Kelly.”

“Maeve…” Kelly raised a hand in a placating gesture, but she shook her head, the anger flaring in her eyes, and then melting away as tears spilled out, streaking her cheeks.

“Maeve…” Kelly was up, his arms around her now, pulling her close.

LeGrand swallowed hard, but saw that this was a battle he could not fight and discreetly withdrew without another word.

“You know what this means, Kelly.” Maeve wept as she spoke. “You know…”

“You were listening. You heard what LeGrand said. Yes, I know. But you mustn’t worry, Maeve. I’ll figure something out once I’m there. If I can get in and out before the flood at dawn, then I should be well away from the place before anything happens.”

“Kelly…” She pulled back from him, her eyes meeting his. “You know I’m not talking about that. It’s—”

He put his hand over her lips to silence her. “I know,” he said. “You don’t have to go through it all now, love.”

They looked at one another and Kelly could see that she understood him. He knew that his chance of escaping the sphinx alive was the least of his worries. It was what happened after that mattered. Whether he succeeded or failed, there was still Paradox to answer, and Paradox was jealous. It had been cheated once before, and now it would have its chance to even the score. Yet Kelly was undaunted. All he could think of at the moment was how he might bring some small comfort to Maeve. “Don’t you see?” he began. “I’ve been there before. I’ve faced down the void and danced on my own grave. Something will happen, Maeve. And if it doesn’t… well… what are we, anyway? What are we?”

She looked at him through the pain, wanting to understand him, yet unwilling to let him go.

“I’ll tell you what we are,” she whispered. “We’re promises, and hope. We’re a whisper in the night; a yearning. We’re everything we ever dreamed of being, and more. We’re the whole of it on one single breath; a lifetime in one kiss, a hundred years…” She smiled wanly, her heart breaking open as she spoke.

“A hundred years,” he whispered back,” and not a moment now to spare.”

He held her close. The silence in the room was palpable. Paul was hunched over the particle infusion chamber, unable to look at them. LeGrand had retreated to the history module where Robert was sandbagging himself in behind a wall of research files and books. He was tormented, trying to master his emotion with his work, his attention pulled to the scene and then yanked back again to the pages of a thick, leather bound volume. He was searching for something, driven.

Paul was the first to break the silence. He composed himself and turned to face Kelly with as much of a smile as he could muster.

“Time,” he said, and Kelly looked up at him. “Time we got the system up, mister.”

“Right,” said Kelly, easing away from Maeve.

“I’ll see to the consoles,” Paul put in. “You had better get dressed for the part, amigo.” It would give them another few moments together in the anteroom, he knew, and Maeve gave him an appreciative smile as she led the way.

They were not long. The minutes passed quickly and Kelly emerged, his arms extended in a graceful sweep as he displayed his Arabic getup. Everyone smiled as he pranced about the room, a regular Lawrence of Arabia in his own right.

“There were Arabs in Egypt before the Pharaohs came?” Paul laughed as he asked the question.

“Well,” said LeGrand, “there shouldn’t be, but there are—the other side has men in the sphinx. I thought this might give our man here a bit of an advantage, and suggested the garb to Maeve.” He laughed with them, but his gaze was ever pulled to the clock on the wall by the door. Paul saw the worry on his face, and he swallowed hard, shoring up his will for the moments ahead.

“Best get down to the Arch,” he said. “You go too, Maeve. You can see him off at the yellow line.”

There was a long silence. Kelly stood up straight and looked from one to the other. He was thinking of what he might say to them now. He was leaving them all, he knew, and he would never see any one of them again.

“No goodbyes,” said Paul, his voice breaking.

Kelly smiled as his heart flooded with a warming sense of compassion. “Don’t mourn because it’s over,” he said softly. “Rejoice that it happened.” Then he turned suddenly, his robes wafting up on the still airs of the room, and he strode quickly away to the yawning oval door that would take him down to the Arch.

Maeve went after him, her thoughts a torrent of confusion, and yet with some hope. He’s out for us all, she thought, for LeGrand, and Paul, and Robert, and all the rest. He’s on his way for everything we have ever loved, and yet for everything we have railed against as well. He on to it now, all of it—Shakespeare and Stalin both, and he won’t come back. She was certain of that now. He would not come back.

A surge of emotion seized her as they went, hand in hand, down to the Arch. She cursed them all, Einstein, and Heisenberg, and every other name she could bring to mind. She wanted back every moment she had given to the project, the long hours of research, the endless calculations, the mind numbing struggle with outcomes and consequences that she could never really be certain of. There was no certainty. It was all a show, and she cursed it silently beneath her breath before she let her anger go at last and took hold of her love again.

Kelly would go for the West and do what he could to set things right. He was willing to give up his life—but for what? What was it? The poetry; the music he so loved? Strangely, it was the voice of a poet that came to her now, with the only comfort she could fathom in this moment of parting. This was the second time she had faced this certainty… this terrible sense of loss. The first was the moment she reached for the volume of the Seven Pillars, afraid to look and see that the history once written there would be changed. She knew, of course, that its altered course would make an end of Kelly, who’s life depended on the calamity of Palma—on the catastrophe that began the great fall into the gray world that even now loomed around them, just beyond the gossamer thin barrier of the Nexus.

She lost him once, and now she must lose him again. A line of poetry came to her, stubbornly, reflexively, as if to say that saving at least this much would mean something in the end… ‘My life closed twice before its close…’

Yes, she thought, how appropriate. I will endure this again, and then live with what remains. And when death finds me, somewhere ahead, it will seem a small and inconsequential thing to me then, after this. She held the poem close in her mind, and finished it as they reached the bottom of the elevator. It was Emily Dickinson, that shy wisp of a woman with the whole of life in the turning of one simple rhyme:

My life closed twice before its close;

It yet remains to see

If Immortality unveil

A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,

As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

Part X

Resolution

“Things are where things are,

and as Fate has willed,

so shall they be fulfilled.”

—Aeschylus: Agamemnon 67

(Translated by Browning)

28

He arrived on the dark of night, the chill of the Arch quickly giving way to a sensation of growing warmth. The sound of flowing water came to him next and, as the mist of the time shift dissipated, he gathered himself and scanned the low horizon for the moon. It was a thin sickle, hanging in a of jade black sky just above the darker shape ahead, which he immediately recognized as that of a great beast, silent in its repose as it waited for the dawn.

He stared at it, realizing that this was not the real sphinx, the stony lion that sat at the feet of the Great Pyramids, but it bore an uncanny resemblance. The Great Pyramids did not yet exist, and would not be built for another eighty centuries or more! Yet here this ancient artifice sat, guarding the eastern meridian where the faint glow of fading stars were now setting, low on the horizon. He immediately recognized the constellation as that of Orion—that the Egyptians might call ‘Osirus.’ As the moon crowned the head of the beast, he could make out the telltale shape of a crudely carved face, draped in shadow. Moments later, the silhouette was plain to see and he froze, as if the creature might spy him out where he stood on the gentle downward slope of a low hill.

For a moment he thought he perceived a glint of light emanating from the eye of that great carved face. But then he was possessed with a feeling of immense emotional weight, as if the burden of ten thousand years had suddenly come down upon his shoulders, the leaden legacy of all the centuries that stretched out between this moment and the time of his own life. The gleam in the eye of the beast was one of recognition, he thought. It was oblivious to all else around it—fleeting life that came and went in the barest wink of a moment compared to the vast span of its existence. But when Kelly appeared it took notice, one ancient thing regarding another in the silence of the desert. He felt old now, hobbled by time and the dire urgency of his mission.

His instinct told him to move, down from the exposed slope of the hill to the covered watercourse below, and he felt his legs labor with sluggish response. Must be the effects of the time shift, he thought. Paul had told him what to expect. Though this was not the first time he had moved in the continuum, the feeling of disorientation was greater now than either of his previous shifts.

Moving forward was feather light, he remembered. He felt as though he was simply evaporating to mist, and then suddenly appeared in the pristine white chamber of some future world. There he had met, and spoken again, with Mr. Graves, a man bound to the thread of his life by the mystery of Time and Paradox. They had saved him from certain annihilation, snatching him away from the hounds as they sought to fall upon him at the end of that first mission.

He remembered snatches of conversation, questions and answers he did not fully comprehend at the time. It was necessary to move him forward to the safety of a Nexus, Graves had told him, otherwise his life would be forfeit to Paradox. The mission, undertaken by Paul and Robert, had been a success. Somewhere, back along the desolate track of the thin rail line that led down from Maan to Medina, a moment had been found that would change all future moments. It was something that still remained unseen and hidden in the confounding complexity of Time, hidden by its own insignificance. Neither Paul nor Robert could discern it. They could not determine what they had done to change things, but the Pushpoint was there somewhere, replete with significance, the whole of Time wrapped tightly round one single instance of the ordinary. What was it? Was it something they said to one of the historical figures they encountered? Was it something Paul did while held captive on the train? Was it something Robert worked by changing the life course of the two Arab men he had stumbled upon? They would never know.

That thought filled him with anxiety as he reached the bottom of the hill and descended into the low, winding thread of the watercourse. He remembered Paul’s anxiety when a silly error had sent his friends millions of years into the past. The farther back you go, the greater the influence of every thing you do.

There was a distant flash of light in the sky and, seconds later, the low rumble of thunder. Storm coming, he thought, and there was something in the growl of the night sky that filled him with deathly fear. LeGrand had spoken of a floodgate he must find and open. Could they have known that, on this night, of all nights, the sky would open and rains would fall heavily upon the barren landscape, a tempest that would end this whole affair. He remembered the rains of the Bay Area that first night in May when they were planning the Shakespeare mission. It began with a storm, and it will end with one, he thought.

Shivering, he looked about him at the flowing stream. What was he supposed to do here? Look toward the moon, follow the water, LeGrand had told him. It would lead him towards the great beast of stone that guarded this place—the only sign of human civilization anywhere to be seen. What would he find there?

He had no idea whether the numbers provided by LeGrand were even accurate. For all he knew, the time shift could be well off the mark. Even a minor variance could find him decades from any moment where he could actually carry out his mission. Follow the watercourse. It will lead to an opening and become a hidden, underground stream. That is the way.

He looked at the wine dark waters, agleam with slivers of moonlight, and stooped briefly to let his hand dip into the stream. The water was slightly cool, and he could perceive a gentle tug as the water swept slowly along its way, heading east towards the dark mass of the sphinx. He looked around him, wondering if there were any other people about. Would not this gateway be guarded? LeGrand seemed to think the site would be free and clear, its makers, if they still existed, unwary of any intruder.

One way to find out, he knew, and he started along the muddied edge of the stream, following its winding course as he crept silently to the base of the immense monument. Up ahead there came the sound of falling water, and he soon came to a place where the stream cascaded down a steep incline in a low fall. The mist from the rising spay was cool and refreshing, awakening his senses as he searched for a path down. In the inky darkness, he could barely make his way, afraid that he might lose his footing at any moment and tumble into the water. Trusting to fate, he lowered himself until he sat at the base of the fall. Amazingly, the water flowed down a slight incline here and rushed into the mouth of an eroded cleft in the ground, vanishing from his sight.

How will I get through there? He wondered how deep the water was, and whether he could walk upright through the entrance and yet keep his breath. Gingerly, he stood and advanced into the stream, feeling the cool water rushing past his lower legs until he was in well above his knees. When he reached the cleft he had to stoop low to pass inside, but thankfully, there was plenty of open space between the water and the stony roof of the underground passage. How long was it? What if the cave roof lowered?

Only his feet, and the quite determination that drove him forward, could give answer. He surged forward, finding the passage ever deeper, until the dark flowing water was chest high, then shoulder high, the rough ceiling very close to his head now. Then came the moment of truth.

He had been walking carefully, with one arm extended overhead to brace himself against the roof. The cool water chilled him, and he could feel his muscles tightening with involuntary shivers. It was so dark that he could barely see anything at all. Then the low ceiling descended abruptly and he came up short, nearly bumping his head against the jagged roof. He could hear the water frothing against the stony lip of the overhang, and he knew there would be no room to breathe if he went further. The only option was to completely submerge himself !

He passed a moment of fear, wondering how long he would have to hold his breath beneath the stream. What if it went on for a hundred feet like this? His fear seemed magnified by the sound of the cool black water as it rushed away. He could not come all this way without at least trying, he knew, so he shored up his will and took several deep breaths. Do you swim? LeGrand had asked him. He would soon find out.

A second later he took the plunge, ducking under the lip of the overhand and pressing forward. Five, then ten seconds passed, and he pushed forward, his hand groping on the rough upper throat of the cave. Fifteen seconds… twenty… He would soon have no choice but to turn about and retreat to catch his breath. He took three more steps, then his ankle wrenched hard on a slippery stone and his feet gave way beneath him. The force of the stream took him, and dragged him on. In a moment of panic he flailed about, disoriented, and desperate to gain some hold, but the water dragged him along the narrow underground channel at a speed he could never have achieved on his own. A moment later he came sputtering to the surface of a wide inner pool, gasping in the air, strangely sweet and warm here.

He thanked any god who would listen to his prayer just then. If he had kept on walking, his breath would have given out long before he could reach this place. It was only the fall, and the force of the stream, that enable him to gain the safe air of this chamber. He wondered if he had just stumbled on a Pushpoint, a silent stone in the bed of the stream that would change all Time from this moment forward.

He was surprised to see the faint glow of light ahead, wavering yellow and orange on the surface of this underground pool. As his eyes adjusted, he could see he was in a great cavern. Here the water was chin high, and he could still bob along on his toes, the soaked robes of his Arabic garb trailing after him as he moved. He made for the light, which now registered as torchlight in his mind. Ahead he saw the smooth dark shape of a barrier, something spanning the far edge of the cavern like an immense wall.

At once he realized that he must be looking at the hidden lock on the stream—the first lock, built to control and moderate the flow of the water beyond this point. He leaned forward and began to swim, making steady, even strokes until he reached the lock. His hand probed and he felt the telltale texture of wet wood. Yes, there was no mistaking this now. He saw that there were several openings in the lock that allowed the stream water to pass through, and kept the chamber from filling completely. It was a carefully regulated flow, but the recollection of the lightning he had seen in the night sky when he arrived made him shiver with the thought of what a torrential flash flood would do if it reached this chamber.

A distant rumble reverberated in the chamber, the hollow sound of thunder emanating through the earth. It seemed to him that the great lion of the sphinx was growling awake. Dawn was coming above the earth, and the beast was waking to greet it.

Kelly studied the lock carefully, wondering how he would get on the other side. He moved to one end, close by the edge of the pool, and ran his hands along the thick wood beams, until he felt something irregular in the face of the barrier. It was a lever of sorts, attached to a trap door! There was a thick coil of woven rope tied about the lever, giving him a good place to make a firm grip. He leaned down on it and. The door gave way with a wet squeak that echoed through the chamber, and it opened inward, moved easily by the rushing water.

Kelly wasted little time slipping through the opening to a much smaller pool on the other side. The chamber then narrowed, lapping up on sandy banks on either side where there were several large wooden beams, possibly leftovers from the construction of the lock itself. At the far end it ascended up a steep embankment where the way was dimly lit, and he felt the urge to get out of this damp, dark place and reach the warmth of the torchlight. Then he remembered that this was his mission—this very place. He stared at the lock, wondering how it operated. What was he to do? Should he merely leave the hatchway open? Would that be enough to cause the flood LeGrand was hoping for?

He spied a line of thick pegs, the thickness of his leg, jutting from the lock at intervals, just a foot above the water. Each one had a coil of rope about it. As he puzzled over them, he noticed that the water was slowly rising from the increased water flow of the open hatchway. The pegs had a purpose, he knew, but what? He waded over, feeling about one of the pegs until he noticed the depression of a seam in the wood below it. He groped about and was soon satisfied that the peg was attached to yet another hatch… a whole series of hatchways built into the lock. Is that what he had to do? Open all these hatches? He tested one, but for all his straining effort, he could not make it budge.

The great bass drum of thunder sounded again, as he thought what to do. Then an idea came to him as he looked at the rough wood beams cast up on the far embankment. He made his way over to them, taking hold of a thick log and dragging it off the embankment into the pool of water. It had an amazing buoyancy for its weight, and bobbed easily on the surface of the water once he had it afloat. Perhaps he could use the thing as a great ram to strike the wooden pegs and force open the hatchways on the lock. Could that be the reason these logs were kept here?

He was getting ready to thrust the log ahead of him as a ram, but paused a moment. Studying the pegs again closely. There was something he was missing. The log could not strike the pegs, for it was still well below them… but that would change as the water continued to rise in this pool in the minutes ahead. It suddenly occurred to him that the hatches might not open like doorways, but rather like windows, sliding upward. He squinted at the overhead ceiling and saw a series of depressions in the stony roof, each aligned with one of the pegs. Yes! The hatches slid upward, he was sure if it now, but how to move them?

The log had something to do with it all, but what? The log… the log… the log! The answer came to him and he quickly repositioned the log until it was parallel to the face of the lock. Now he guided it into place, just below the horizontal line of pegs, taking the rope coiled about the pegs and lashing it to the beam. Could it be this simple, he thought? The water would rise, and the log would rise with it, until it struck the pegs and slowly raised them. The hatches would open, sliding upward, ever so slowly, and more water would be added to the pool, increasing the upward pressure.

He wondered if the logs would have enough buoyancy to prevail against the sluice gates. Something told him that this was a carefully balanced system, and that counterweights must be involved. Just for good measure, he dragged another log into the water and lashed it to the first. Now the buoyancy of two logs would press against the pegs as the water rose. When he finished he was cold, and soaked to the bones. He wanted nothing more but to reach the safety of dry land above, and made his way toward the torchlight.

But what have I done, he thought? I’ve rigged the lock to open the sluice gates and flood this entire chamber. Under normal circumstances he could see that it would be a slow, gradual process… but the growl of thunder, and the rain that was sure to follow, made him realize that his death now fell from the storming clouds above. Rain could fill up the watercourse in a sudden flash flood, and the lock would give way under that pressure to flood the whole chamber beyond this point.

Well, he thought, whatever is beyond this point, I suppose it’s time for a look. No sense waiting here for the flood tide. I’ve done my best. There’s no sense trying to backtrack at this point either. I’d never make any headway against the stream. If there’s a way out of here, I must go on from this point and see what lies ahead.

29

He was some time getting up the muddy embankment at the far end of the pool, but he soon dragged himself, breathless, onto a shelf of dry stone.

Kelly looked back for a moment, wondering where the water emptied from the chamber below. It must flow on through another opening in the wall of the chamber, hidden beneath the surface of the pool. If those sluice gates open, however, the flow will be too great. The water will fill the chamber and rise to this level, spilling over to flood… To flood what?

Now his gaze was pulled down a long limestone corridor that led east from this point. The flickering of torchlight moved shadow and light over the walls, illuminating a series of carvings there, in classic Egyptian style. He wished he had time to bone up on the hieroglyphics, for he could make no sense of them at all.

He walked slowly on, his senses keenly aware, until he reached the first guttering torch. It had been doused in a sweet smelling oil, lending a pleasant spicy aroma to the air. Another roll of thunder rumbled in the distance but, as it subsided, a faint clink of metal on stone could be heard. He listened, hearing a steady chink, chink, chink, as if someone was carving, or excavating the chambers ahead.

He walked on, drawn by the sound, his gaze playing over the silent carvings on the walls. Up ahead the corridor opened to a great chamber that stretched up into deepening shadow, and there, hunched against a far wall, was another man in Arabic robes. He was bent over a section of the wall, chipping away with a mallet and chisel by the light of a wavering oil lamp.

Kelly did not know what to do or say, but he stepped gingerly forward, approaching quietly as the man worked at the wall. As he crept closer, he was possessed with the feeling of an intense déjà vu, as if he had come upon this place, this man, before, though he knew that was clearly impossible. Still, the feeling that he knew what was about to happen next was overwhelming, and confirmed when the man suddenly stopped his work at the wall and turned to face him.

“Falaq – The Dawn is come. In the name of God the most gracious, the most merciful. Who seeks refuge with the Lord of the Dawn?” The man looked at him, dark brown eyes above a graying beard, his face lined with the years, cheeks sallow below his thin, yet regal, nose.

Kelly could almost hear the words he would speak next, impossibly, in answer to the man’s question. “I… I seek refuge…”

“Refuge from the mischief of created things,” the man answered. “From the mischief of darkness as it overspreads, and from the mischief of those who practice secret arts…” There was a glint in his eye, the hint of a smile.

Kelly was confused. “You speak English?” he stammered.

“No, that is not my native tongue,” said the man. “But you speak it, and know nothing of the true voice, and so I meet with you on ground that may be more familiar to you, for I have been waiting here this morning, expecting your coming at the edge of the storm, as it was foretold to me.”

“Foretold? What do you mean?”

The man smiled, the lines of his face stretching as he did so. “Look about you,” he said, gesturing with a thin arm. “Have you not seen this place before?”

Kelly looked, seeing the high walls carved with hieroglyphics, stretching away into the shadows. The sensation of déjà vu was redoubled, and he had the distinct impression that he had been here, seen all this, spoken with this very man, many times before.

“Yes,” he whispered, not knowing exactly what he meant.

“Yes,” the man returned. “For this is the first place. The first true moment. From here, all things progress forward to become what they must, and here I write it, as it must be told, inscribed upon these walls so that my brothers will know the tale of the ages.”

“The history,” said Kelly. “You are carving the history of all time here on these walls?”

“As I am able.” The man squinted at the torchlight carvings and pointed. “See there, that they call ‘cartouche’ in the modern tongue, each one begins a new sura. But this is the first.”

‘The touchstone,” Kelly whispered. “This is where the messengers come to press their parchments against the wall.”

The man nodded. “And they take away a rubbing of the sura they are charged with, so that they may know the outcomes that are to be desired. So it is that we work our will upon the days, and herd them to some good end.”

“Good end? Perhaps as you may see it,” said Kelly.

“Certainly,” the man agreed. “But how else can I see it? Each man sees what he wishes. But it is not my will that must prevail. The world belongs to Allah, blessed be his name, and I am merely his servant.”

“Oh, of course,” said Kelly, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Tends to relieve you of the burden of guilt, eh? You were speaking of mischief a moment ago, the mischief of those who practice secret arts. Don’t tell me you are blameless in that.”

“No,” said the man, “I will not be so arrogant, my friend. I am as guilty as any man that ever lived, though the only arts I practice are those I can work with this hammer and chisel. Yet I know that with every stroke of my hammer, a legacy is set down that will decide the fate of billions. It is a terrible burden, yet I must bear it. And you? You have come here to make an end of this place, have you not? Yes… you have lashed the beams to the gate in the passage below, and the waters are rising. You have come to set the tempest of the dawn upon the beast that has hidden this chamber for millennia.”

Kelly was troubled. “How could you know that? You saw me? I don’t understand…”

“Oh, but you do understand. That is why you greeted me with a knowing glance… why this place is familiar to you, why all of this seems as if it has been lived before.”

“You’re telling me that I have been to this place, and spoken with you before?” Even as he asked the question Kelly knew the answer himself. This was the beginning of all places, the Prime Meridian. To this point in time all things owed homage. Every generation would bow to the lion of stone that guarded this place. He had a sudden vision of the image of a sphinx, imprinted on a silver coin, as if to commemorate the sacred significance of this place and time. And the coin was in his hand, an ordinary silver piece that he might use for pocket change. He could not make any sense of the memory, but he was certain of it.

The man turned to him, with real warmth in his eyes. “The first time we spoke of the dawn when you questioned me about the sura I quoted at our greeting. I can see you are confused. Do not worry. This place—this time—has but two possible outcomes. Either you succeed in your quest, and this place is destroyed, or you fail, and we live on. You are experiencing a moment of dissonance, that is all. The echoes of each possible outcome join together now to create this moment in your experience. Come… we have so little time together. Will you not walk with me? We will go out and greet the dawn, and perhaps, if you are willing, we might offer a morning prayer of thanks, as all men should do when they are given a moment like this one.”

He started away, gesturing for Kelly to join him, and Kelly felt himself pulled along, as if by an irresistible curiosity.

“Then you knew I was coming… You expected me.”

“Yes, this time, at least. And we have set aside the logs and closed the lock on the hidden stream. Rest assured, your death does not await you within these chambers as you feared. That possibility has been closed…”

“What do you mean?”

“The first possible outcome—that you should succeed and the flood comes upon us here: I have seen it as well. I still recall the image of your face and voice in the hall of records when the waters came, and how we clung to one another when the torrent came upon us. Thankfully Salim was at hand at that very moment.”

“Salim?”

“Yes, one of our messengers. He was here to make his delivery of the fourth age, and set to leave just when you arrived. So it was that he returned with knowledge of all that you would work here. It was all in play, you see, his coming and going at that moment. And so it was meant to be this way all along. The other side strives mightily, but here we are once more, taking this long walk through the heart of the beast, out to greet the dawn. Oh yes, forgive me, I have not told you my name, though I am sure you may already know it.”

Kelly knew the man now.

“You are Hamza,” he said, the word appearing in his mind as he reached for it. “You are the keeper of records, the Scribe, the maker of days that are set in stone.”

“You remember!” Hamza beamed with delight. “I told you my name as we clung to one another before the end—in that other time, the possibility we have ended once and for all.”

They walked through a low arch, and Kelly could discern the gray light of dawn ahead of them. Soon they were up a long flight of rough hewn stones and out of the Sphinx, emerging from a nook near his right hind leg. The cold rain fell upon them, and the wind played with their robes.

“The tempest is upon us,” said Hamza. “This is no place to pray but, if you could see far enough, that is the way to Mecca, or at least the place where Mecca will rise up in ages hence.

Kelly squinted, the rain washing his face, and mixing with tears that welled at the corners of his eyes. They learned of my mission when Salim was sent back on routine courier assignment. He knew it all now, remembered it all, as if the contact with Hamza had shaken the hazy coils of recollection in his brain, and set them in motion. The fog of uncertainty was finally lifted in a golden moment of complete awareness. Salim was pulled out, and informed the other side of these events. Somehow, some way, they were able to run yet another intervention andsend someone back to preserve the integrity of the lock on the stream below. He had little doubt that the logs he had lashed to the flood gate below were set aside by now, as Hamza told him, and the hatchways closed to seal out the flood that was pouring down from the gray heavens above.

And so now, instead of a watery death with Hamza the Scribe, he would survive this moment—though he could not be certain that any other future still remained for him.

He turned to Hamza, tears in his eyes. “How long…?”

Hamza smiled. “We have a little while yet. Your friends will try to call you home soon, though you may not feel the place to be a home in your heart when you return. They will make an error, a very small one of course, but then little things have great consequences—or so we have learned. You will make your return, to a moment when Time may best decide your fate. I will pray for you, my friend. Allah is merciful to all who abandon the errors of unbelief, and hear his words.”

He pointed east, to Mecca, and began to speak, in a low voice that grew ever more certain, and laced with strength and purpose.

“How fixed is the order holding together this material universe above and below us! Yet it must give way before the vast, unfathomed Truth in which man will see his past and future in true perspective. To God he owes his life and all its blessings…”

The voice faded away, and Kelly could feel the strange sense of feathery lightness that accompanied Time shift. He was going home.

30

Kelly awoke from a short nap where he lolled on the table at the college library. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked up at the clock on the wall. Lord! It was half past six already. Vague recollections of a dream fled from him as he stirred awake. He remembered a face, a voice, a prayer, yet none of the words made any sense to him now. He had dozed off, waiting for his computational run to download to his laptop computer, and now it was surely finished.

He got up, walking quickly through the glass doors to the computer lab where he had his laptop docked in a data recovery bay on the Arion system. Sure enough, his download had concluded twenty minutes ago, and he was surprised that no one had come to find him. Time on an Arion system was in high demand these days. He had to come all the way into the city to use this system, as the closer facility at U.C. Berkeley was booked solid for the day. Thankfully, there were still time blocks open here, probably because of the Memorial Day weekend, he thought.

He rubbed his palms together, as much for warmth as in anticipation of the data he now had secure in his laptop. The solutions to his convoluted algorithms were well in hand, now he just had to get to his Subaru and brave the Bay Area traffic to make the meeting at Nordhausen’s study by eight. He had to get out of the city, on a rush hour Friday night, over the Bay Bridge and up to Berkeley, and all in this maddening late spring rain.

As he carefully packed his laptop into its carrying case, an ominous rumble of thunder confirmed his worst fears. The freeways were going to be a nightmare. In spite of his nap, he was still tired, and hungry, but there was no time for a meal now. It would take him all of ninety minutes or more to get to Berkeley under these driving conditions.

He zipped up his satchel case and rushed out of the lab, heading for the staircase that would take him down to the lower floor. When he reached the upper landing he had the strange feeling that he had forgotten something. He paused suddenly, nearly tripping up a young female student, who smiled and maneuvered around him.

Something was wrong. He could feel it. Something was out of place… He entertained the notion for a brief moment, and then started down the library stairs, dismissing the thought as nonsense.

~

Over five thousand miles and eight hours to the east something was wrong. Three men were walking down a long tunnel at the back of a hillside, dug into the side of the island mountain. Outside, the quiet stars shone in the sky, and the tiny village below them lay sleeping as the hour struck half past two in the morning. It would be the last hours of peace for this island, the home to one of the three men for long generations.

Palma, in the Canary Islands, was once a secret getaway and waystation for the old Arabic traders, and Ra’id’s family had purchased land there, a small farm and hillside villa, ages ago. Over the centuries it had been passed on, from one generation to the next, and now served as a convenient vacation retreat and lodge of prayer in the trying times of the year 2010.

For Ra’id and his two associates, this was truly a moment of destiny. For years now, ever since the Americans had come to the Holy Lands again, thirsty for oil, he had planned and plotted with his brothers for the revenge he knew he must surely have one day. He was a simple man, grandson of a wealthy merchant who gained prominence during the first days of the Arab rebellion in the Hejaz. How strange, he thought, that a Westerner should be the spark that ignited the rebellion worked by Feisal and the others, his grandfather among them. First it was to throw off the oppression of the Turks, who had dared set foot in Arabia at the behest of the German Kaiser in WWI. The Arabs joined with a small British officer, el Aurens or Lawrence by name, and fought to drive the Turks from their ancestral lands. It was Lawrence who made the first promise to them, all those years ago, that they would have freedom if they would but join the British cause in the war. Now it was another who brought promises of freedom to the Holy Lands, and the price grew ever higher.

Ra’id, and his brothers, determined what they must do. It came to him in the flush of a night vision, as though Allah himself had opened his eyes. He saw, in his dream, the family villa, crowned by a searing fire. The earth shook around him and he knew that the mountain, sleeping quietly since the second great war, was coming alive again, and belching its red wrath out into the dark waters of the sea.

The island of Palma was largely formed by a great volcanic seamount called Cumbre Vieja. Each time it erupted, the unstable flank of the island shifted ominously towards the possibility of total collapse. There was evidence, just off the western shore, of at least twelve such events in the geological history of the island. Now, as the years passed, long tubes, once filled with lava, were saturated with rainwater, and each time the island erupted the water would superheat, expanding with great explosive force—enough force to shake loose the entire western flank of the mountain where Ra’id’s villa now sat in the quiet spring morning.

When this happened the resulting landslide would cause an immense tsunami to surge westward, crossing the whole of the Atlantic in just eight hours. When Ra’id saw the devastation that even a small tsunami could cause after the Indonesian Banda Ache earthquake of December 2004, he knew that he had found the perfect weapon of justice, a mighty sword that he could bring upon the enemies of Islam. It was then that he changed his name to Husan al Din, the sword of the faith, and bent himself to the plan that he hoped would bear fruit this very night.

With him in the tunnel were Nassim, the Wind, and his younger brother. It had taken them many years to acquire the means, and many long hours digging the tunnel they were now leaving. It burrowed into the heart of the mountain itself, allowing them to carry the long sought after device, the abomination made in the West, to its resting place in the heart of the mountain. Nassim had set the timer, and now all was set in motion.

They reached the end of the tunnel and went up the narrow staircase that led to the villa. There would be time enough to clean themselves, and to pray, before the chartered helo would arrive to take them from the island. Ra’id would stay, and endure the fire in holy sacrifice, but his companions convinced him that he should live on to fight again, should anything go wrong.

He stepped out onto the veranda, feeling the cool ocean breeze on his face and looking down at the herd of puffy white clouds that seemed to circle the island, dappled with moonlight. The night blue waters of the sea were calm now, but soon, he knew, they would rise up in a torrent of retribution. His only regret was that this, his sanctuary for so many years, would be vaporized as the sword fell upon his enemies, the island itself devastated, and many friends, companions of long years, lost. Yet there was nothing to be done now. The night was upon them, the time was at hand. Even the mountain itself seemed to stir awake, as if it sensed the impending catastrophe that was now only minutes away.

Soon he heard the distant thrum of the helo, flying high up, but descending rapidly as was planned.

“Come Nassim,” he called. “It is time…”

Things have a way of reaching their perfect end, he thought. Did the Americans think they could rape our lands, plunder our wealth, occupy the soil of Islam without consequence? Bush the elder had been brazen, his son even moreso, and foolish. Now the West would pay for their misdeeds. It had taken him many years of waiting and prayer to accomplish his task. But as the Arabs were fond of saying, ‘A’athreh ib dafra,’ with a stumble and a kick, he would achieve his great aim at last. A night of fire, a night of wind and water and earth, all conspiring together to work the retribution, ere the sun rises. It was not his doing, of course, but the will of Allah that he worked with this moment. He was already composing the words of the announcement that he would make to the shocked world when the true magnitude of his plan would finally become apparent.

‘…We are patient, forgiving. We are seekers only of peace, but as Allah chooses, then the command is given for the seas to rise and pound the shore. We are but an instrument, to that power. As the oceans are made up of an uncountable number of individual drops of serene waters, when Allah commands, those drops come together to form the most powerful force on earth, the ocean of Believers, who’s waves of faith become the hammer upon which justice is delivered to all followers of Satan.’

~

When the fifteen kiloton nuclear device they had buried in Cumbre Vieja exploded just over an hour later, that certainty became a reality. The mountain, rudely jarred by the abomination in its gut, exploded with a fury that was unsurpassed. And just as Steven Ward, Simon Day and a handful of other Western scientists had warned for so many years, the unstable flank gave way, sending well over 500 cubic kilometers of rock into the sea in a mad surging avalanche. The resulting wave set was enormous, and it fanned out from the island, rolling west in dark swells of ocean at the speed of some 600 km per hour. In just under three hours it had swamped the Azores. Three more would find its angry waves upon the shore of Newfoundland. After that, the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States would be engulfed by the sea. It would be four a.m. in the Canary Islands when the mountain would explode, midnight for the Americans, four hours behind. They would not hear of the disaster for over an hour, those that remained awake, but soon the sirens would blare out a warning. The 24 hour news stations would ignite the fire of panic as the orders to evacuate the entirety of the eastern coast of the United States were finally given an hour later. That would leave only five hours, perhaps six, to try and move over a hundred million people to the safety of some inland refuge. Most, sleeping in the dark of the night, would never even hear the warning, in spite of the rising commotion.

It was just by chance that Kelly heard it that evening, as he peered through the squeaking windshield wipers of his midnight blue Subaru. He had just finished listening to a custom CD collection of Frank Zappa guitar solos, and when the disk popped out the he caught a snatch of the news that was rapidly becoming the story of the decade all across America that night. He caught the word tsunami, adjusted the volume, and tuned in the station to hear better.

A few moments later he was utterly aghast at what was happening, and the odd sensation that something was terribly amiss seized him. He had been musing over the numbers in his laptop, and wondering if all the calculations he had run for tomorrow’s mission were in order. They had planned to see a Shakespeare play, the Tempest, but now, it was clearly all around them, rising in headlong degrees with each passing moment. As the realization of the catastrophe settled over him, he vocalized his first reaction. “Damn… looks like we aren’t going to see the play tomorrow. How could we? We’ve got to do something about this—do something to prevent it!” But he could not think of anything they could achieve, even with the power of Time travel at their disposal, if the project worked at all.

Up in the quiet of the Berkeley Hills, just above the university, the Arch was already spinning to life, watched by a few interns as they ramped up the power to a low standby mode. Jen was there, and Tom. The others were waiting for him at Nordhausen’s study in the Berkeley suburbs, Maeve, Paul and Robert.

Paul would think of something, he hoped, as he finally sped through the Tunnel and reached the off ramp he always took when he came this way. He needed more music, and reached for that CD he had made with the favorite songs of a group he had discovered some years ago, a band called Porcupine Tree. The ethereal strains of the music surrounded him now— “Never stop the car on a drive in the dark.” That sounded like good advice in a storm like this, he thought. “Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing through your ears…” Somehow the words jogged a distant memory, but he could not grasp it.

The hunger in his stomach had grown to become unbearable, so, in spite of the rain and lateness of the hour, he simply had to stop and pick up something to eat. There was a 7-11 near the off ramp and, as he started to accelerate again, a strange thought came to him that there was someone on the road ahead, the barest flutter in his awareness. He moved to cover the brake but saw the way was clear, so he drove on. An odd sensation of déjà vu came upon him, woven amid the guitars of the band. The lyric seemed to mock him: “Ever had the feeling you’ve been here before?”

He had a sudden flush of adrenaline, an anxious sensation that he could not account for. It made him strangely light headed, keenly aware of his surroundings, and alive in a way that was exhilarating. He had the odd feeling that he was supposed to do something, but could not think of what it was.

The Subaru rolled into the parking lot of the 7-11 and came to a halt. He was very late but, with any luck, he would get to Nordhausen’s study by 9:30 p.m. He sat for a moment, trying to collect himself and dispel the strange notion that he had just missed something, or forgotten something of the greatest importance, though he could not think of what it was. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone to call the others, but came up empty.

“Great. Now where is my cell phone?” Then he remembered the phone booth just outside the 7-11, and he opened the car door as the driving guitars of the music ended, slipping out in the interval of quiet between tracks. Just then, a car came skidding around the corner, careening wildly out of control on the rain slick pavement. He saw it coming, yet was frozen, unable to move, riveted to this place and time by some power that he could not impede in any way. The car struck him a hard blow, knocking him against a metal road sign where he hit his forehead as he fell.

He was stunned, but reached up, by reflex, and felt the trickle of blood on his forehead. A feeling of exhilaration returned again, with strange whispers in his head. What were they saying?

“…the future depends on Right and Justice… The Day must come when Discord must finally cease, and the Peace of God and his command are all in all… For truly, God’s will flows freely, like these rains fall down upon us now from a darkened sky. We have but to tune our will to His—the ever-living Righteous God… But Oh, for the joy of being found worthy to bear the torch and to say to our brethren: ‘I too was in darkness, comfortless, and behold, I have found comfort and Joy in the Grace Divine.’”

Why those words came to him just then, he could not fathom, only that he knew them, and he had heard them spoken to him somewhere, long ago.

A sudden moment of clarity came to him, and now he knew this place, this time, to a fullness. He had been here before! The first time, a man had stepped from the shadows and rain, and he remembered how he had slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting him. That moment’s delay, that bare whisper in eternity, had changed things. But now they were set back again—back on the Meridian he was born to, and this was the moment he had been spared before, a time that was to be his last.

Palma had happened, he knew. The mountain collapsed into the sea, just as the light in his head now seemed to collapse to a fine point where he lay on the hard cold pavement. For the briefest moment he wondered what would happen to the world now—the world he tried to carry on his shoulders, though he stumbled, and fell.

He cold not think about that… no time for that now… No time for any of it: that first mission to the Hejaz, Nordhausen and his antics in the Arch, Paul’s lost venture in the Well of Souls, the King of Diamonds, and Maeve, dear Maeve. There was no time left now at all. These images of future days he would now never live seemed to emerge like fireflies in his mind, and then die.

Strangely, he smiled, rolling to his side so his face turned upward into the rain. He felt the cold water on his forehead, and knew that nothing had been changed. The world was restored, without his life traded for a future that was never meant to be.

Music was playing now, a solemn piano as the next song began on his CD player in the Subaru. The sound was fading… fading… “Collapse the light into earth…. Collapse the light….” It gave him great comfort as he held the meaning of the words in his heart—here at the beginning, and the end, of all that he ever knew.

TIME GLOSSARY

From Dorland’s Theory

CLARITY – Clear or good understanding of a temporal locus, pattern, event, Outcome or Consequence.

CONSEQUENCE – An undesired result achieved by a temporal Transformation – Usually referring to the negative (i.e.) Sometimes certain Consequences must be accepted in order to achieve a desired Outcome.

CONVOLUTION – The relative difficulty or complexity of a given temporal event or condition.

DEEP NEXUS – Sometimes called a “Void” – A crucial, significant Nexus Point where radical alteration of the time line is possible.

DENSITY – A relative term describing factor counts in temporal events.

FACTOR – An element contributing to convolution in temporal events.

FINALITY – A catastrophic Grand Imperative (like the Cuthulu asteroid strike that led to the eradication of the dinosaurs and other life.)

FREE RADICAL – A dangerous, erratic variable in the course of temporal events – usually only existing within a Deep Nexus.

GREAT VOID – An interminable shadow or Penumbra cast by a Grand Imperative.

HAZE – Obscurity in the understanding of a temporal situation or event.

IMPERATIVE – An event in Time which must happen – Usually a natural event. A Grand Imperative is a natural event of special significance. Some Grand Imperatives can become a Finality.

INEVITABILITY – A progression of events that is inexorable and unalterable.

INITIATOR – A person directly responsible for a new Time Meridian (Like Mohammed, or Christ). A Prime Mover of great significance.

LEVER – A secondary contributor to movement in a series of events.

MERIDIAN – An established line of temporal events on the continuum.

NEXUS POINT – A point of connection, intersection or branching of one or more Meridians in the Time continuum.

NODE – A specific point on a Time Meridian.

OUTCOME – A desired result achieved by a temporal Transformation – Usually referring to the positive.

PARADOX – Time’s way of correcting errors in the Time continuum. Paradox is a real force, and quite dangerous. It kills or erases people and objects from the Time Meridian when unaccountable complications arise from their actions. A Paradox is NOT simply a thorny problem, it is a real effect and force of annihilation. A kind of “Anti-Time”

PENUMBRA – The shadow of influence on future events cast by an Imperative.

POINT OF ORIGIN – The temporal locus where a person or object becomes a Prime Mover.

PRIME MOVER – A primary causative lever or agent for an event – usually a person but sometimes an object.

PUSH POINT – A moment of insignificance that gives rise to a key event on a Time Meridian. Often associated with a Prime Mover.

QUANTUM KARMA – The influence of causality on a Time Meridian. Each moment on the Meridian affects the next, and certain Prime Movers accumulate an aura of Quantum Karma around them that also has profound effects on the configuration of future moments in Time.

RADICAL TRANSFORMATION – A catastrophic alteration of the Temporal Condition.

TEMPORAL CONDITION – The matrix, pattern or state of affairs in a given time period.

TRANSFORMATION – Any change in a Time Meridian that alters a future Temporal Condition.

TRANSFORMER – A person who causes a Transformation.

VARIATION – A subtle change in a Time Meridian that does not significantly alter Temporal Conditions.

WILLFUL EVENT – Events resulting from decisions or actions taken by human beings

The Writing Shop Press

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The Meridian Series

Novels By John Schettler

ForeWord Magazine’s

“Book of the Year”

2002 Silver Medal Winner for Science Fiction

Book I

Meridian – A Novel In Time

The adventure begins on the eve of the greatest experiment ever attempted—Time Travel.

As the project team meets for their final mission briefing, the last member, arriving late, brings startling news. Catastrophe threatens and the fate of the Western World hangs in the balance. But a visitor from another time arrives bearing clues that will carry the hope of countless generations yet to be born.

Book II

Nexus Point

In this compelling sequel to the award winning novel Meridian, the project team members slowly come to the realization that a “Time War” is being waged by unseen adversaries in the future.

The quest for an ancient fossil leads to an amazing discovery hidden in the Jordanian desert. A mysterious group of assassins plot to decide the future course of history, just one battle in a devious campaign that will span the Meridians of time, both future and past

Book III

Touchstone

When Nordhausen follows a hunch and launches a secret time jump mission on his own, he uncovers an operation being run by unknown adversaries from the future. The incident has dramatic repercussions for Kelly Ramer, who’s place in the time line is again threatened by paradox. Kelly’s fate is somehow linked to an ancient Egyptian artifact, once famous the world over, and now a forgotten slab of stone. The result is a harrowing mission to Egypt during the time frame of Napoleon’s 1799 invasion.

Other work by John Schettler

Taklamakan

The Land Of No Return

It was one of those moments on the cusp of time, when Tando Ghazi Khan, a simple trader of tea and spice, leads a caravan to the edge of the great desert, and becomes embroiled in the struggle that will decide the fate of an empire and shake all under heaven and earth.

Steamboat Slough

A Mystery

There was something under the ice at Steamboat Slough, something lost, buried in the frozen wreckage where the children feared to play. For Daniel Edwards, returning to the old mission site near the Yukon where he taught school a decade past, the wreck of an old steamboat becomes more than a tale told by the village elders. In a mystery weaving the shifting imagery of a dream with modern psychology and ancient myth, Daniel struggles to solve the riddle of the old wreck and free himself from the haunting embrace of a nightmare older than history itself.

Wild Zone

Science Fiction – The Dharman Series

A shadow has fallen over earth’s latest and most promising colony prospect in the Dharma system. When a convulsive solar flux event disables communications with the Safe Zone, special agent Timothy Scott Ryan is rushed to the system on a Navy frigate to investigate. He soon becomes embroiled in a mystery that threatens the course of evolution itself as a virulent new organism has targeted mankind as a new host.

Sequel: Mother Heart

For more information visit:

www.writingshop.ws or www.dharma6.com

Copyright Notice

All material in this file is protected under U.S. Copyright Law.

Touchstone, Copyright©2008, John Schettler

Being Book III in the Meridian Series Novels by John Schettler

All Rights Reserved

No part of this file may be duplicated, distributed, stored in any medium, or sold without expressed, written permission by the author.

ISBN: 0-9713170-6-2

John Schettler – john@writingshop.ws

A publication of:

The Writing Shop Press

www.writingshop.ws

Rev: 05/09

Content

John Schettler with Mark A. Prost
TOUCHSTONE
A NOVEL IN TIME

Part I Arrival

1

2

3

Part II Contamination

4

5

6

Part III Schroedinger’s Box

7

8

9

Part IV Time & Place

10

11

12

Part V Rosetta

13

14

15

Part VI Travelers

16

17

18

Part VII Discovery

19

20

21

Part VIII Chaos

22

23

24

Part IX Decision

25

26

27

Part X Resolution

28

29

30

TIME GLOSSARY From Dorland’s Theory

The Writing Shop Press

The Meridian Series Novels By John Schettler

Other work by John Schettler

Copyright Notice