Timeline

by Michael Crichton

  After twenty minutes, she was relieved to come into a clearing with tall grass in sunlight. She saw a break in the trees on the far side, where the path resumed. She was riding through the clearing when she saw a castle off to her left. She didn’t remember any sort of structure from her charts, but it was here nevertheless. The castle was small—almost a manor house—and whitewashed, so that it shone brightly in the sun. It had four small turrets and a blue slate roof. At first glance, it looked cheerful, but then she noticed all the windows were barred; part of the slate roof had fallen in, leaving a ragged hole; the outbuildings were crumbling and in disrepair. This clearing had once been a mown field in front of the castle, now grown wild from neglect. She had a strong sense of stagnation and decay.

  She shivered and spurred the horse on. She noticed that the grass ahead had recently been trampled down—by the footprints of another horse, moving in the same direction as she. As she looked, she saw the long blades of grass slowly rising upward, returning to their original position.

  Someone had been here very recently. Perhaps only a few minutes before. Cautiously, she proceeded toward the far end of the clearing.

  Darkness closed around her again as she slipped back into the forest. The trail ahead was becoming muddy, and she could see distinct hoofprints going forward.

  From time to time, she paused and listened intently. But she heard nothing at all up ahead. Either the rider was far in front of her or he was very quiet. Once or twice, she thought she heard the sound of a horse, but she couldn’t be sure.

  It was probably her imagination.

  She pushed on, toward the green chapel. To what had been called, on her maps, la chapelle verte morte. The chapel of green death.

  :

  In the darkness of the forest, she came upon a figure leaning wearily against a fallen tree. He was a wizened old man, wearing a hood and carrying a woodsman’s ax. As she rode by, he said, “I beg you, good master, I beg you.” His voice was thin, rasping. “Give me some small thing to eat, for I am poor, and have no food.”

  Kate did not think she had any food, but then she remembered the knight had given them a small bundle, tied behind her saddle. She reached back, found a crust of bread and a piece of dried beef. It didn’t look appetizing, particularly since it now smelled strongly of horse sweat. She held the food out to him.

  Eagerly, the man came forward, reached a bony hand for the food—but instead he grabbed her outstretched arm at the wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and, with a swift yank, tried to pull her from the horse. He cackled with delight, a nasty sound; as he struggled with her, his hood fell back, and she saw that he was younger than she had thought. Now, three other men ran forward from the shadows on both sides of the path, and she realized that they were godins, the peasant bandits. Kate was still in the saddle, but clearly not for long. She kicked the horse, but it was tired and unresponsive. The older man continued tugging at her arm, all the while muttering, “Foolish boy! You silly boy!”

  Not knowing what else to do, she screamed for help, screaming at the top of her lungs, and this seemed to startle the men, so that they paused for a moment before resuming their attack. But then they heard the sound of a galloping horse coming toward them, and the roar of a warrior’s battle cry, and the godins looked at one another and scattered. All except the wizened man, who refused to release Kate and now threatened her with his ax, which he raised in his other hand.

  But in that moment an apparition, a bloodred knight on horseback, came crashing down the trail, his horse snorting, flinging clops of mud, the knight himself so fierce and bloody that the last man ran for his life, plunging into the darkness of the forest.

  Chris reined up and circled around her. She felt a huge wave of relief flood through her; she had been badly frightened. Chris was smiling, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” he said.

  “Are you?” Kate asked, amazed. Chris was literally drenched in blood; it had dried all over his face and body, and when he smiled, it cracked at the sides of his mouth, revealing the pink skin beneath. He looked as if he had fallen in a vat of red.

  “I’m fine,” Chris said. “Somebody hacked the horse next to me, cut an artery or something. I was soaked in a second. Blood is hot, did you know that?”

  Kate was still staring at him, amazed to see anyone who looked like that making jokes, and then he took her horse’s reins and led her quickly away. “I think,” Chris said, “we won’t wait for them to regroup. Didn’t your mother tell you not to talk to strangers, Kate? Especially when you meet them in the woods?”

  “Actually, I thought you were supposed to give them food and they helped you.”

  “Only in fairy tales,” he said. “In the real world, if you stop to help the poor man in the woods, he and his friends steal your horse and kill you. That’s why nobody does it.”

  Chris was still grinning, and he seemed so confident and amused, and she had the feeling that she had never noticed, never been aware, that he was quite an attractive man, that he had a certain genuine appeal. But of course, she thought, he had saved her life. She was just grateful.

  “What were you doing, anyway?” she said.

  He laughed. “Trying to catch up to you. I thought you were way ahead of me.”

  :

  The path divided. The main path appeared to go off to the right, beginning a slow descent. A much narrower track went to the left, on flat ground. But it seemed much less used.

  “What do you think?” Kate said.

  “Take the main road,” Chris said. He led the way forward, and Kate was quite happy to follow him. The forest around them grew more lush, the ground ferns six feet high, like huge elephant ears, obscuring her view ahead. She heard a distant roar of water. The land began to slope downward more sharply, and she couldn’t see her footing because of the ferns. They both dismounted and tied their horses loosely to a tree. They proceeded on foot.

  The land sloped steeply downward now, and the path turned into a muddy track. Chris slipped, grasping at branches and shrubs to break his slide. She watched as he slipped and slid, and then with a yell, he was gone.

  She waited. “Chris?”

  No answer.

  She tapped her earpiece. “Chris?”

  Nothing.

  She was not sure what to do, whether to go forward or retrace her steps backward. She decided to follow him, but cautiously, now that she knew how slippery the path was, and what had happened to him. Yet after only a few careful steps, her feet shot out from beneath her, and she was sliding helplessly in the mud, banging against tree trunks, getting the wind knocked out of her.

  The terrain grew steeper. Kate fell backward in the mud and slid down on her backside, trying to use her feet to push off tree trunks as they rushed up. Branches scratched her face, tore at her hands as she reached for them. She didn’t seem able to stop her headlong rush down.

  And all the time, the terrain grew steeper. Now the trees ahead were thinning, she could see light between the trunks, and she heard the rush of water. She was sliding down a path that ran parallel to a small stream. The trees thinned more, and she saw that the forest ended abruptly about twenty yards ahead. The rushing sound of water grew louder.

  And then she realized why the forest ended.

  It was the edge of a cliff.

  And beyond was a waterfall. Directly ahead.

  Terrified, Kate rolled over on her stomach, dug her fingers like claws into the mud, but to no avail. She still continued to slide. She couldn’t stop. She rolled onto her back, still sliding down a chute of mud, helpless to do anything but watch the end coming, and then she shot out of the forest and was flying in the air, hardly daring to look down.

  :

  Almost immediately, she smashed down into foliage, clutched at it, and held. She swung up and down. She was in the branches of a large tree, hanging out over the cliff. The waterfall was directly below her. It wasn’t as large as she had thought.
Maybe ten, fifteen feet high. There was a pool at the base. She couldn’t tell how deep it was.

  She tried to climb back along the branches of the tree, but her hands were slippery from the mud. She kept slipping, twisting on the branch. Eventually, she was hanging beneath, clutching it with hands and legs like a sloth as she tried to work her way backward. She went another five feet, then realized she would never make it.

  She fell.

  She struck another branch, four feet lower. She hung there a moment, gripping the branch with slippery, muddy hands. Then she fell again, struck a lower branch.

  Now she was just a few feet above the waterfall as it curved, roaring, over the lip of the cliff. The branches of the tree were wet from mist. She looked at the churning pool of water at the base. She couldn’t see the bottom; she couldn’t be sure how deep it was.

  Hanging precariously from the branch, she thought: Where the hell is Chris? But in the next moment, she lost her grip and fell the rest of the way.

  :

  The water was an icy shock, bubbling, opaque, roiling furiously around her. She tumbled, disoriented, kicked to the surface, banged against rocks on the bottom. Finally, she came up beneath the waterfall, which pounded on her head with incredible force. She couldn’t breathe. She ducked down again, swam ahead, and came out a few yards downstream. The water in the pool was calmer, though still chillingly cold.

  She climbed out and sat on a rock. She saw that the churning water had washed all the mud from her clothes, from her body. She felt somehow new—and very glad to be alive.

  Catching her breath, she looked around.

  She was in a narrow little vale, the afternoon light misty from the waterfall. The valley was lush and wet, the grass was wet, the trees and rocks covered in moss. Directly ahead, a stone path led to a small chapel.

  The chapel was wet, too, its surfaces covered with a kind of slimy mold, which streaked the walls and dripped from the edge of the roof. The mold was bright green.

  The green chapel.

  She also saw broken suits of armor heaped untidily beside the chapel door, old breastplates rusting in the pale sun and dented helmets lying on their sides; also swords and axes casually thrown all around.

  Kate looked for Chris but didn’t see him. Evidently, he hadn’t fallen all the way, as she had. Probably he was now making his way down by another path. She thought she would wait for him; she had been happy to see him earlier, and missed him now. But she didn’t see Chris anywhere. And aside from the waterfall, she heard no sound at all in the little valley, not even birds. It was ominously silent.

  And yet she did not feel alone. She had the strong sense of something else here—a presence in the valley.

  And then she heard a growling sound from inside the chapel: a guttural, animal sound.

  She stood, and moved cautiously along the stone path toward the weapons. She picked up a sword and gripped the handle in both hands, even though she felt foolish; the sword was heavy, and she knew she had neither the strength nor the skill to use it. She was now close to the chapel door, and she smelled a strong odor of decay from inside. The growling came again.

  And suddenly, an armored knight stepped forward, blocking the doorway. He was a huge man, nearly seven feet tall, and his armor was smeared with green mold. He wore a heavy helmet, so she could not see his face. He carried a heavy double-bladed ax, like an executioner’s.

  The ax swung back and forth as the knight advanced toward her.

  :

  Instinctively, she backed away, her eyes on the ax. Her first thought was to run, but the knight had jumped out at her quickly; she suspected he might be able to catch her. Anyway, she didn’t want to turn her back on him. But she couldn’t attack; he seemed to be twice her size. He never spoke; she heard only grunting and snarling from inside the helmet—animal sounds, demented sounds. He must be insane, she thought.

  The knight came quickly closer, forcing her to act. She swung her sword with all her strength; he raised his ax to block and metal clanged against metal; her sword vibrated so strongly, she nearly lost her grip. She swung again, low, trying to cut his legs, but he easily blocked again, and with a quick twist of his ax, the blade flew out of her hands, landing on the grass beyond.

  She turned and ran. Snarling, the knight raced forward and grabbed a fistful of her short hair. He dragged her, screaming, around to the side of the chapel. Her scalp burned; ahead, she saw a curved block of wood on the ground, showing the marks of many deep cuts. She knew what it was: a beheading block.

  She was powerless to oppose him. The knight pushed her down roughly, forcing her neck onto the block. He stood with his foot in the middle of her back, to hold her in position. She flailed her arms helplessly.

  She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into the air.

  :

  The telephone rang insistently, loudly. David Stern yawned, flicked on the bedside lamp, picked up the receiver. “Hello,” he said, his voice groggy.

  “David, it’s John Gordon. You’d better come down to the transit room.”

  Stern fumbled for his glasses, looked at his watch. It was 6:20 a.m. He had slept for three hours.

  “There’s a decision to make,” Gordon said. “I’ll be up to get you in five minutes.”

  “Okay,” Stern said, and hung up. He got out of bed and opened the blinds at the window; bright sunlight shone in, so bright that it made him squint. He headed for the bathroom to take a shower.

  He was in one of three rooms that ITC maintained in their laboratory building for researchers who had to work through the night. It was equipped like a hotel room, even down to the little bottles of shampoo and moisturizing cream by the sink. Stern shaved and dressed, then stepped out into the hallway. He didn’t see Gordon anywhere, but he heard voices from the far end of the corridor. He walked down the hall, looking through the glass doors into the various labs. They were all deserted at this hour.

  But at the end of the corridor, he found a lab with its door open. A workman with a yellow tape was measuring the height and width of the doorway. Inside, four technicians were all standing around a large table, looking down at it. On the table was a large scale model built of pale wood, showing the fortress of La Roque and the surrounding area. The men were murmuring to one another, and one was tentatively lifting the edge of the table. It seemed they were trying to figure out how to move it.

  “Doniger says he has to have it,” the technician said, “as an exhibit after the presentation.”

  “I don’t see how we get it out of the room,” another said. “How’d they get it in?”

  “They built it in place.”

  “It’ll just make it,” said the man at the door, snapping his tape measure shut.

  Curious, Stern walked into the room, looked more closely at the model. It showed the castle, recognizable and accurate, in the center of a much larger complex. Beyond the castle was a ring of foliage, and outside that a complex of blocky buildings and a network of roads. Yet none of that existed. In medieval times, the castle had stood alone on a plain.

  Stern said, “What model is this?”

  “La Roque,” a technician said.

  “But this model isn’t accurate.”

  “Oh yes,” the technician said, “it’s entirely accurate. At least according to the latest architectural drawings they’ve given us.”

  “What architectural drawings?” Stern said.

  At that, the technicians fell silent, worried looks on their faces. Now Stern saw there were other scale models: of Castelgard, and of the Monastery of Sainte-Mère. He saw large drawings on the walls. It was like an architect’s office, he thought.

  At that moment, Gordon stuck his head in the door. “David? Let’s go.”

  :

  He walked down the corridor with Gordon. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the technicians had turned the model on end and were carrying it through the door.

  “What’s that all about?” Stern said.r />
  “Site-development study,” Gordon said. “We do them for every project site. The idea is to define the immediate environment around the historical monument, so that the site itself is preserved for tourists and scholars. They study view lines, things like that.”

  “But why is that any of your business?” Stern said.

  “It’s absolutely our business,” Gordon said. “We’re going to spend millions before a site is fully restored. And we don’t want it junked up with a shopping mall and a bunch of high-rise hotels. So we try to do larger site planning, see if we can get the local government to set guidelines.” He looked at Stern. “Frankly, I never thought it was particularly interesting.”

  “And what about the transit room? What’s going on there?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  :

  The rubber floor of the transit site had been cleared of debris and cleaned. In the places where acid had eaten through the rubber, the flooring was being replaced by workmen on their hands and knees. Two of the glass shields were in place, and one was being inspected closely by a man wearing thick goggles and carrying an odd hooded light. But Stern was looking upward as the next big glass panels were swung in on overhead cranes from the second transit site, still being built.

  “It’s lucky we had that other transit site under construction,” Gordon said to him. “Otherwise, it’d take us a week to get these glass panels down here. But panels were already here. All we have to do is move them over. Very lucky.”

  Stern still stared upward. He hadn’t realized how large the shielding panels were. Suspended above him, the curved glass panels were easily ten feet high and fifteen feet wide, and almost two feet deep. They were carried in padded slings toward special mounting brackets in the floor below. “But,” Gordon said, “we have no spares. We just have one full set.”

  “So?”

  Gordon walked over to one of the glass panels, already standing in place. “Basically, you can think of these things as big glass hip flasks,” Gordon said. “They’re curved containers that fill from a hole at the top. And once we fill them with water, they’re very heavy. About five tons each. The curve actually improves the strength. But it’s the strength I’m worried about.”