‘To do with the colonel? I mean Rufius?’
‘I think there has been some kind of leadership challenge by Dalton’s mother. She has many friends in the council — including a faction that disagrees with the way the continuum is being managed. They call themselves “The Determinists”. They have a major issue with the way we allow for so much random variation within our calculations.’
‘What kind of challenge?’ Josh asked, imagining some kind of old-fashioned duel.
Caitlin shrugged her shoulders. ‘Dalton was boasting the other day that his mother has some new revelation, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.’
Josh imagined the ways in which he could inflict pain on Dalton. There were many and most involved sharp, pointed things.
‘You do know you have the right of appeal? About the exclusion I mean,’ Caitlin added.
‘No. Why didn’t anyone tell me?’
She frowned. ‘You would need Rufius to speak on your behalf. It’s not usual for a prospect to lose his mentor just as he’s getting excluded. In fact, I think you’re the first.’
Josh looked around the kitchen. ‘Then I’ll have to find the old man, won’t I? Don’t the Copernicans know where he went? Shouldn’t they have a trace on his notebook?’
She shrugged. ‘Apparently he didn’t take his almanac or it’s been destroyed. There is a “statistically low possibility of recovery”,’ she said, putting air quotes round the last phrase.
Over the next three hours Josh and Caitlin searched the entire house. On the top floor, Josh found rooms that he’d never known existed. One was full of random notes and clippings pinned to the walls, each connected to another by lines of red twine — it looked like the work of a madman. He called to Caitlin, and she came running up the stairs. Her eyes went wide at the sight of it.
‘I knew that Uncle Rufius was a bit obsessive about the fatalists. We don’t really talk about it — the Protectorate aren’t too happy about some of his theories.’
They took different sides of the room, following the string as it crisscrossed the space, connecting one random event to another in no apparent logical way.
‘Did he ever speak to you about this?’ she asked.
‘No. Who are the Fatalists?’
‘A group of fanatics that believes the Order shouldn’t be meddling in the timelines. Rufius believes they are sabotaging the past,’ Caitlin said as she stopped at one particular area of the wall.
There were a large number of red lines converging on a single sheet of torn newspaper. It was a report on the discovery of a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings from the Times dated 1933.
‘My parents investigated this one. They never came back from it.’
Josh couldn’t think of anything to say. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and wiped her eyes.
‘We haven’t got time for that now,’ she growled.
Josh spotted a number written by the side of the pin that was holding the twine in place.
‘What does this mean?’
‘It’s a time co-ordinate. Written the old way, there are still some that say it’s more accurate.’
He remembered the night the injured colonel had appeared in the study. The old man had been babbling on about a random set of numbers.
‘I think I know where he might be.’
42
The Copernicans
[Richmond, England. Date: 11.580]
When Josh told Caitlin about the co-ordinates that the colonel had made him memorise, she’d nearly hugged him. She made him repeat them to her over and over again, but she couldn’t quite figure it out, so she decided that they would have to go back to someone who would be able to help them.
Caitlin left Josh in the Grand Nexus, the atrium of the enormous Copernican building — the largest structure Josh had ever seen. Like a plaza, it was a long, thin, cathedral-like nave with a high, vaulted, stained-glass ceiling through which sunlight filtered down in rays of ruby, topaz and emerald. Hundreds of floors were stacked on each side with metal stairways providing access to the inner workings of the building. Its components occupied every available space and filled the hall with the sound of a thousand gear wheels — giving the overall feeling of being inside a massive old clock.
A crescendo of bells rang out from the far end of the hall. Josh turned to see an enormous rotating dial made up of concentric rings turning through 180º as it marked the hour. Each ring was inscribed with numerals and symbols that, by Josh’s limited understanding, told the time in at least ten different millennia. In unison, everyone on the floor around him took out their own timepieces and checked them, then went back to their work.
The floor was tiled in a marble chequerboard of black and white, with symbols etched into the obsidian squares. Josh assumed that it was some kind of signposting since there were no other obvious ones. Hundreds of men and women in various coloured robes walked to and fro across the concourse. They were all absorbed in their work, adjusting strange-looking abacuses or flicking through thick books. An old man with a long white beard passed him, tossing a coin repeatedly and calling out ‘naive’ or ‘caput’ to a young boy who followed behind, keeping tally on a beaded rope.
‘The Venerable Von Neumann — he’s testing the random coefficient,’ said a familiar voice behind him. Sim was wearing an elegant-looking blue robe with the seal of Copernicus stitched into the front. The clothes made him look older somehow. He offered his hand as he approached.
Josh was happy to see him and shook his hand warmly.
‘Every century they have to check how far off S.R. — Standard Random — the continuum has moved,’ Sim added.
‘Random has a standard?’
Sim looked at him in disbelief. ‘Of course. How do you think we compensate for it?’
‘By tossing a coin?’
‘Classic Bernoulli process. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best.’
‘So how long does he have to do that for?’ Josh asked, beginning to wish Caitlin would hurry up with whatever she had gone off to do.
‘Oh, not long, maybe a year or two. It depends on the asymptotic equipartition property.’
Josh watched the man wander off, his coin rising and falling through the iridescent rays above them. He had no idea what Sim was talking about, but he had a lot of respect for the old man’s dedication.
‘Amazing place you have here,’ Josh said, changing the subject.
‘Yes, she’s a beauty isn’t she?’ Sim agreed, looking into the upper levels. ‘It houses the most advanced difference engine the sixteenth century could engineer.’
‘Can I see it?’
Sim laughed. ‘It’s all around you, Josh. This whole building is one giant computational machine. She can process over a hundred thousand pph — probabilities per hour,’ he explained proudly.
Josh looked at the building and began to notice some of the details, the cogs and gears turning in the walls, the cables and pipes carrying punched cards across the space above them.
‘Caitlin tells me you’ve run into a bit of trouble,’ Sim whispered, reaching inside his robe.
Josh caught a glimpse of many pockets in the inner lining as Sim pulled a small almanac out from one of them.
‘Here, take this. It will allow me to contact you wherever you are.’
Josh took the book and hid it inside his own robe ‘Thanks.’
Caitlin came out of a set of doors followed by a tall, thin man in a dark, sombre gown. He walked beside her with all the distinguished bearing of a priest.
Sim turned to see what Josh was looking at and whispered, ‘Stochastic Professor Eddington. He’s always had a soft spot for Cat.’
Caitlin’s face cracked into a broad smile when she saw Sim, and she rushed over to wrap her arms round him, hugging him tightly. Eddington was obviously uncomfortable with such a public show of affection.
‘Professor Eddington, may I introduce Joshua Jones, Acolyte of the Fourteenth?’
Eddington raised his eyebrow slightly and bowed. ‘Fourteenth . . . That is impressive for an Acolyte — I would say in the ninety-fifth percentile.’
Caitlin shook her head as Josh went to offer his hand and he quickly withdrew it.
‘Yes, it was kind of an emergency —’
‘I have told the professor about Rufius,’ Caitlin interrupted, ‘and he thinks he may be able to help us.’
‘Yes.’ Eddington nodded. ‘What is your milieu of origin?’
Josh looked blankly at Sim.
‘He’s from the present, sir,’ Sim intervened.
‘Terrible place!’ The professor grimaced. ‘Now, if you would care to follow me. Master Simeon, do you not have work to which you must attend?’
Sim looked sheepish and made his excuses before bowing to the professor and leaving quickly.
They walked behind the austere figure down the length of the hall towards the giant clock. Josh tried not to be distracted by the amazing mechanical systems around him, but it was virtually impossible.
‘What does all this actually do? Other than tell the time.’
‘Omnia fieri possunt — all things can happen,’ said Eddington without turning around. ‘To calculate the near-infinite possibilities and probabilities of the future and select the best course for the continuum.’
‘But why not use computers?’
Caitlin grimaced, and Josh immediately realised he’d said the wrong thing.
Eddington spun on his heels to face him, his placid expression replaced with a red flush of anger. When he spoke it was through gritted teeth.
‘Ms Makepiece, please be so kind as to explain to our young friend here why we cannot use ELECTRONICS!’ He turned back and strode off at an even faster pace.
Caitlin sighed and pulled Josh along after the disappearing form of the professor.
‘You can’t bring that kind of technology back here.’
‘I know that,’ he said. ‘You can’t go back to before it was invented. But you could set all this up in the twenty-first century.’
She shook her head. ‘Too close to the present. The frontier has a distorting effect on the convergence of random variables the closer you get to it.’
‘The frontier?’
‘Where the present and the future converge.’
‘So why can’t you just bring back the plans for computers and build them here?’
She coughed. ‘That’s possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever said. Can you imagine what would happen to the future if we built advanced technology and it got out into civilisation?’
Josh shrugged.
‘Second rule of the Order: “No advancement of earlier milieu by imparting of future knowledge or events.” It screws up all their calculations for a start.’ She waved around at the Copernicans.
‘And what was the first rule again?’
She made an exasperated groan, then saw that he was joking and punched him in the arm.
Professor Eddington had calmed a little and was waiting impatiently in front of a large door with a globe embedded at its centre.
‘The map room. You should be honoured. Not many get to see beyond these doors,’ she whispered.
‘If you are quite finished with your horseplay, perhaps we could proceed?’ Eddington said, taking out a strange-looking key that hung from a chain round his neck. He placed it into the centre of the globe.
The doors ground open slowly. They were over a metre thick and made from some kind of metal. Josh assumed this was a kind of vault, the room beyond the doors was dimly lit, and he couldn’t make out the details of what lay beyond.
‘Follow me,’ Eddington said, putting the key back round his neck, ‘and don’t touch anything.’
Josh’s eyes slowly grew accustomed to the low light until he could recognise some of the shapes around him. At first, he thought it was a planetarium: there were large spheres on metal rods that idled around each other on rotating discs, and pinpricks of tiny white light shone down from the high ceiling, creating a star field of constellations he couldn’t name.
‘This is the Orrery, or Universal Engine as some refer to it,’ echoed the voice of Eddington from somewhere out of the darkness. ‘With this model we are able to show the arrangement of the universe at any given time in the last twelve millennia.’
As impressive as the machine was, Josh had no idea how this was going to help them find the colonel and was about to say something to that effect when Caitlin’s hand slipped into his and squeezed it gently as if to say, ‘Wait and see.’
He heard the professor move a series of unseen levers, and the silent spheres began to whir around above their heads. Like a carnival ride, they watched the universe turn round a central orb, which began to glow, obviously signifying the sun. As the illumination intensified, Josh tried to work out exactly where the earth was. A minute later he spotted a small insignificant blue sphere the size of a golf ball in comparison to the gas giants of Jupiter and Venus.
‘This model is of course not to scale,’ the professor said from the pulpit of controls on the far side of the model. ‘It has been a somewhat contentious issue over the last few hundred years. The fourteenth century was still debating whether or not the earth was flat, let alone the centre of the universe.’
Josh couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live in a time that didn’t understand basic stuff like how the solar system worked — things that any six-year-old took for granted. To not know that the earth was round or that the reason the sun came up every day was because the planet was spinning round it at 1,000mph. The knowledge was so fundamental that it seemed as if it had always been there. This was the first time Josh actually appreciated the little education he had received; he realised he knew more about the universe than most of the scientists of the fourteenth century.
‘Now, those co-ordinates if you please,’ the professor requested.
‘Seventeen to the fourth, Tiberian. Twenty-five. Nine. Fourth branch, ninth parallel,’ Josh repeated, and Eddington manipulated the controls of the machine to send the universe spinning backwards in time.
The shape of the model changed before their eyes; the Earth grew larger as the other planets shrank and disappeared beneath the floor. As the blue sphere expanded, the metal plates of its shell slid over each other like layers of an onion, each adding more detail until he could make out the continents, oceans and topographical details of the various land masses. Place names appeared over the surface in old-fashioned copperplate — Josh saw the coast of England flash by with ‘German Sea’ written in place of the channel. France was called ‘Gaul’ and there were other older terms for other places, but their outlines were unmistakeable.
‘This is Earth circa 9.914.’
Josh tried to do the maths in his head.
‘Eighty-six BC,’ Caitlin whispered in his ear, her breath sending a tingle down his spine.
‘The co-ordinates that Rufius gave you refer to Ogylos in Greece, now known as Antikythera.’
A brass-ringed magnifying glass larger than their heads swept round and centered on the small island just above Crete. Josh could see model buildings, trees and even ships in the harbour.
‘At this time it was being used as a base by a band of Sicilian pirates, but Rome was very dominant and still had a permanent fleet stationed off the coast.’
‘And this is where the colonel is?’
‘Perhaps,’ answered the professor, appearing out of the dark. ‘It is most certainly where he wanted you to go.’
‘Why Greece?’
‘That, Mr Jones, is what you are about to find out.’
43
The Antiquarians
Caitlin thanked the professor and took Josh down a series of winding stairs to an underground train station where the platform was nothing more than a waiting room with a few benches.
‘The Copernicans aren’t collectors,’ she said once she’d checked to see if they were alone. ‘We’ll have to go to the Antiquarian d
epartment before we can make the jump back to ancient Greece.’
‘Aren’t the Antiquarians the ones who run the museums?’
‘That is one of their roles.’ She tried not to sound too condescending. ‘They are essentially the custodians of all historical artefacts, and their collection goes well beyond what you see in a museum.’
The windows of the waiting room began to rattle. Josh felt the ground beneath his feet shudder as if some massive juggernaut were passing through. A moment later, a gleaming black steam locomotive slowed into the station. It was pulling a single metal carriage. Josh could see a rather eccentric-looking man standing at the controls, wearing an old leather flying hat and goggles. He spoke into a tube, and a tinny voice came through a metal grille in the ceiling. ‘Next stop: Antiquarian Archives. Please have your designations ready.’
‘That’s us,’ Caitlin said, standing up.
Josh followed her into the carriage, which was empty except for a strange collection of railway memorabilia. They sat down on one of the less uncomfortable-looking benches as a bespectacled old guard appeared through the back door.
‘Tickets, please.’
‘So the Antiquarians are based in the same century as the Copernicans?’ he said, trying to sound as if he wasn’t a complete newbie.
Caitlin handed the guard a ticket, and he inspected it through thick-lensed glasses. ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘They use redundant timelines to deal with the storage issue. It’s the only way to keep everything organised.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘You’ll see.’
The guard clipped their ticket and announced, ‘Grecian,’ in a monotonous tone into a speaking tube, moving a series of dials on the device that hung round his waist. Seconds later the train set off at speed.
The Grecian archives of the Antiquarians was equally as impressive as the Hall of the Copernicans. It was like a museum but hundreds of times bigger. Caitlin explained there were thousands of artefacts carefully catalogued and stored in rooms spanning centuries from 5000 BC.
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 23
