Unburning Alexandria (Sierra Waters)

by Paul Levinson

  Sierra nodded, in the grudging appreciation she found she often had for how thoroughly Heron had thought through the razored intricacies of time travel – some of which, she was certain, still eluded her.

  Heron caught her emotion. "Do you know how deeply I yearn to cease my activities, to return to my life as a scholar, to pursue knowledge and its applications, once again for its own sake? But I dare not."

  "Perhaps you should try harder," Sierra said.

  Heron smiled.

  Sierra looked at him. His smile was certainly not one of happiness.

  "To know that time travel is possible, to already be playing a role in its workings, is to make you its slave," Heron said.

  "Slave?"

  "How can I do nothing, not intervene?" Heron asked. "To do nothing might well serve to confirm, to set into permanence, a reality which was not meant to be – a reality which perhaps I earlier was responsible for bringing into being, not knowing I was doing such a thing. No, doing nothing when time travel is possible may be far more damaging than acting. Doing nothing may be the worst kind of intervention–"

  All three turned in the direction of approaching steps.

  "Can your Nubian handle this?" Heron asked, with a slight smile.

  The Nubian moved forward, a knife in each hand.

  A man, neither legionary nor Nubian, walked out of a corner and into their view.

  Sierra gasped, then bolted towards the man, around the Nubian, who tried in vain to stop her with an outstretched arm.

  She tried to see clearly, take in every possible photon, but her tears interfered. "Max!"

  * * *

  Sierra knew she couldn't hold Max and focus on Heron at the same time. She didn't want to let Heron out of her control, but– "Max!" She flung her arms around Max.

  And the Nubian was upon them, trying to separate them.

  "No! Leave us alone!"

  The Nubian understood and pulled back.

  Max said something to her, in English, which she couldn't quite get.

  She pointed to Heron, who was walking slowly towards them. "Stop him," she commanded the Nubian. "But do not hurt him."

  The Nubian hesitated a split second and then went for Heron.

  Max was speaking. "–you. Is it you?"

  Sierra held him close and now sobbed uncontrollably. "You're alive."

  * * *

  Sierra didn't know what she was thinking. She thought she was thinking that the Nubian would get Heron, and she would hug Max and never let go, but then she realized that the Nubian had been gone too long and her tongue had been in Max's mouth and she was crying, too.

  "You taste the same," Max said. "Some philosopher once said tasting is the ultimate confirmation of reality."

  "How did you–"

  But Max's warm mouth was on hers again, and she put her hand on his face, tenderly, and she held him hard and for a moment she was back in her apartment in New York City and Max was at the door and she was annoyed because he had interrupted her reading of that infinite regress manuscript and– "How did you survive? I thought I saw you– their knives. I – I wanted to go back." She could feel her tears thick on his cheek, slick and wet like the time they had been caught in the cloudburst in London.

  "It's ok," Max said. "If you had stayed, if you had tried to help, if you had come back to help, you would have been killed, too."

  "You were killed? But–"

  "I don't know," Max said. "I don't really remember much of what happened to me after the stabbing and slashing started." He pulled slightly away and breathed, shakily. "It was the worst pain I ever felt in my life. I know I was close to death. But I was saved by future surgeons. And I went through rigorous training. I feel good now. Better than before. Stronger."

  "Heron–" Sierra began.

  "Heron? What connection do you have to Heron?" Max demanded and looked at her intently. "I – I'm sorry. I'm still trying to get used to what you look like."

  "Heron is responsible for all of this," Sierra said. "No, I am, too. We all are, in a way. But I think Heron is the most responsible – have you run into him yet?"

  Max shook his head no.

  "Of course not," Sierra said. "You would have recognized him when I pointed to him."

  Max looked down the corridor behind Sierra. It was now empty. "That old guy was Heron?"

  "Yes – why does that surprise you, if you don't know what he looks like?"

  "I was supposed to find Heron back here and– that wasn't Heron."

  "How can you know that, if you never met?"

  "I was given this picture of Heron." Max reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small digi-portrait.

  * * *

  Sierra looked at the image a long time. She tried to calm herself and decide what to do. Where were Heron and the Nubian? "I don't know who that is," she lied. "It's not Heron – not as he was just a few minutes ago."

  Max laughed, sarcastically. "You people not only travel through time, you travel through faces."

  "Who gave you this digi-trait?" Sierra asked.

  "Jonah," Max replied. "I met him and someone named Synesius in the future. Synesius says he knows you."

  "Yes," Sierra said. "Ok. . . ." She breathed deeply. "Let's see what happened to my Nubian, and to Heron in the flesh." She pulled Max's hand. He squeezed it, let go, then walked in front of her. He held his hand up in a protective gesture when they reached the corner and carefully looked around.

  Sierra ignored his hand and looked, too.

  An empty corridor was all they saw. No Heron, no Nubian, not even any chambers.

  "How did you get here – to this place in the Library?" Sierra asked Max.

  "Through an entrance on the other side." He pointed in a direction which, as far as Sierra knew, had no entrances or exits to the Library. "Should we go there, now?" Max asked.

  Sierra considered. "No. Let's go back to Heron's quarters."

  * * *

  Sierra and Max retraced the steps taken by Sierra, Heron, and the Nubian a few minutes earlier.

  Ptolemy was still mumbling. This time, he looked up from his scroll and spoke. "You are taking a long orbit around me," he said, with a faint smile, "and you have attracted a new satellite!"

  Sierra smiled back at him. This was the first time Ptolemy had ever spoken to her! She had taken a plane ride with Socrates, she had saved Plato's life, you couldn't beat that, but she still found it thrilling to interact with anyone so famous from history. "Have you seen any other satellites – have you seen Heron?" She tried to keep her voice light. Heron obviously was one historical figure she got little pleasure from knowing.

  "Heron?" Ptolemy asked, as if he had never heard the name before. He resumed mumbling into his scroll, his finger running over the words, his back half turned.

  "You do not know– thank you." Sierra thought the better of pressing him. Better to keep this new contact for another day.

  She and Max walked the rest of the short way to Heron's quarters. They carefully entered. Sierra had not expected to find Heron here, but it was the only place she could think of in the Library to look for him. But his chambers were empty, and just as she and Heron and the Nubian had left them.

  "We can't stay here," she said to Max. "We have no protection with the Nubian gone, and Heron could return with his legionaries."

  "Like the ones on the Thames," Max said, darkly.

  "Yes. I'd like to stay here, it's probably the best chance we have of finding Heron, but–"

  "I agree with you. Where can we stay, then?"

  "I have quarters elsewhere in the Library – about five minutes from here," Sierra said. "I arranged for them earlier. I don't think Heron knows about them."

  * * *

  Max was sleeping, and Sierra was softly crying. She had been awake all night, thinking of her parents' place in Quivett Neck, on Sea Street, on Cape Cod, in the 21st century. Thinking of Max back then.

  It was close to dawn.

  She had been ho
ping Alcibiades would come to her in Alexandria for so long, and here was Max, 250 years earlier than she had been waiting for Alcibiades.

  She had not been with anyone since she and Alcibiades had made love on that little boat in the Aegean, after she had saved Plato, before they had saved Socrates. She could still smell that soft, sweet breeze off the sea. It smelled like Alcibiades. It had helped keep her going, all of these years.

  Max shifted slightly in his sleep. Sierra wiped her cheek, and put her hand on Max's chest. She loved him, too, even if it was different than with Alcibiades.

  It had felt good to be with Max. She kissed him gently on the forehead. She had not told him about Alcibiades.

  There had been only two reasons she was back here now. One was Alcibiades. The other was saving whatever she could from this Library, which had become her home, her life, in 413 AD.

  Now there was a third – Max. And a fourth . . . finding out about the face in the digi-portrait . . . how Jonah had come to tell Max it was Heron . . . and whether it was, indeed, Heron. She had seen him only once, in person. But she had also seen his portrait at least one or two other times, in Synesius's hands. Augustine of Hippo . . . Saint Augustine . . . patron saint of printers and brewers and, along with Thomas Aquinas, one of the two greatest minds in the history of the Church. What connection did Augustine have to Heron? Was he also the patron saint of time travelers? Would Heron assume Augustine's identity in the same way she had taken on Hypatia's and the same way the man who was now Heron may have done that with the original Heron some time in the past? Was everyone traveling through time also traveling through faces as Max had suggested?

  She looked at Max and kissed him long and gently on the lips. He wanted to help her. She knew that and needed that. He could help with saving the Library, and with unraveling the digi-portrait.

  As for Alcibiades . . .

  Sierra put her head on Max's chest, and now hoped her tears didn't wake him. She soon fell sound asleep.

  * * *

  They walked quickly and quietly to Heron's quarters again in the late morning. He was still gone.

  They found a place to have breakfast, not too far from the Library. They ate peaches and persea, black bread and honey. Max was smacking his lips.

  They talked about saving the Library. "We can forget about Caesar's time," Max said. "His fire ships had no effect on the Library." He told her what he and Jonah had witnessed. "If the fires were set by secret arsonists – if there were actually any fires in the Library back then – they would be much more difficult to prevent than the public fires. We would have no idea where they started."

  Sierra nodded. "I haven't been here long enough – I was never here long enough, though it feels when I'm here like I've been here forever – to get any real idea of the Library's complete holdings. But if Caesar's men did no damage, the scrolls should all be here now."

  "Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra 200,000 scrolls – the entire Pergamon Library – as a gift," Max said. "If true, those would still be here, even if Caesar's people had earlier burned every text in the Library."

  "Pergamon must've had every text Aristotle ever wrote," Sierra said, wistfully, "likely dozens we never even heard of." She felt like a graduate student again. It hadn't felt that good the first time, but was keenly good now. That's what being deprived of your everyday life will do for you, she realized. She saw that Max was looking at her.

  He smiled. "You're still a kid in a candy store when it comes to learning something new." He stroked her shoulder.

  She put her head on his arm. It was good talking to him again–

  "How do we save the scrolls?" Max asked.

  That brought her out of her reverie.

  "Let's assume all the lost books are here, right now," Max said. "How do we save them? Bury them somewhere? Bring them with us through time? That would be more reliable, with the scrolls in our possession, but it would take an enormous amount of doing."

  "That's what Heron was going to show me," Sierra replied. "'Rooms resistant to flames,' is what he told me."

  "Ah yes, those rooms. Cleopatra's sister was taking us there in Caesar's time."

  "And?" Sierra asked.

  "We never got there."

  Sierra looked at him.

  "We were attacked." Max shuddered slightly. "We killed them – I killed two of them." He shook his head slowly.

  "Whom did you kill?"

  "Romans," Max replied.

  Sierra thought for a moment. "How did you get here?" she asked softly.

  "How did I get here? On a boat, from Athens, like I told you. With Jonah."

  "That brought you here, to Alexandria, in 48 BC," Sierra said.

  "Yeah."

  "But this is 150 AD."

  "Ah - I see what you're asking." Max put down his bread. "There was a room with a chair."

  "Where?"

  "Right here in the Library," Max replied.

  "What? There are only three places with chairs - the Millennium Club in New York, the Parthenon Club in London, and that rundown bar in Athens."

  "Well there's obviously a fourth, here in the Library. You don't believe me," Max said and shook his head. "You think I'm, what, lying or crazy?"

  Sierra realized that she didn't know what exactly she thought about what Max was saying. She didn't think he was lying. But who knows what all he had been through had done to his brain. Was he hallucinating? She looked at him, then went to hug him. He pushed her away. No, she didn't really think he was crazy, either. But the existence of a fourth room with chairs right here in the Library seemed too good to be true – it could change everything about saving the scrolls – unless it somehow also fit in with one of Heron's plans.

  She took his hand. He didn't squeeze back but he didn't pull it away, either. "We'll figure it out," she said, gently. "Do you know where the room with the chair is located - can you find the way back to it? How did you find it in the first place?"

  "When it was clear the Library wasn't burning, I went back in," Max replied. "Jonah and Arsinoe went somewhere else in the city - to one of Arsinoe's secret places. They invited me, but I wanted to see more of the Library, and maybe find the flame-resistant rooms. I found the room with the chair instead. I'm not sure where it is – this Library is like a maze."

  Sierra had seen pictures of Arsinoe – she was more beautiful than her sister. She could understand why Jonah or any man would find her hard to resist, and she certainly had no claim on Jonah, but the thought of the two of them bothered her–

  Max withdrew his hand. "You don't trust me?"

  "No, no," Sierra said, "it's not that."

  "Maybe you think I'm not really me?" Max raised his voice.

  Two women walking by looked at Max and Sierra.

  Max lowered his voice a little. "With all of these changes of faces, I guess I can't blame you – but you're the one with a goddam different face now, not me. I'm one-hundred-percent Max Marcus! You want proof? I can tell you just how you moaned and moved in my arms the last time in your apartment in New York City. "

  Sierra smiled. "That you can remember, huh. . . ."

  "Yeah."

  She took back his hand. "I know you're you. I remember New York, too. Just like I remember last night. And I–" She could feel her face hot and smiling.

  Max smiled, a little, too. "Orgasmic confirmation of identity."

  "Yeah," Sierra said, and put a coin on the table to pay for their food. She stood, leaned over Max, and kissed him full on the lips. "I believe you," she said softly and stroked his hair, which she realized was longer than the last time they had been together on that God forsaken beach. Except maybe not so forsaken after all, because he was here with her now. "Let's see if we can find that room," Sierra said. "It's better now that you're here."

  "Dymaxion Max to the rescue."

  "Dymaxion?" Sierra asked.

  "Buckminster Fuller. 1930s. I read him in a cognate course I took for my doctorate up at Fordham Univers
ity a long, long time ago. . . . Dymaxion means more from less."

  "You're not less," Sierra said.

  "Time will tell."

  Chapter Eight

  [Carthage, 413 AD]

  Augustine closed his eyes and sipped his wine. "What, exactly, do you want?"

  "Kykeon," Heron answered, and helped himself. "This is the first I have ever seen you prefer ordinary wine."

  "I want to have a clear head for this conversation," Augustine said, tiredly. "I want to understand exactly what you wish to accomplish with this . . . plan."

  "Stability, continuity," Heron replied.

  "That is what we all want. But we do not usually kill to attain it."

  Heron smiled. "Your Church has done so already, many times."

  Augustine shook his head. "What can she do? She is just a woman. One woman. Not an army. Not even a man."

  "Women can move men, as you well know. But that is not my concern. It is the knowledge that she seeks to move that poses a danger, the gravest danger to humanity."

  Augustine said nothing, then, "the Church seeks to preserve knowledge."

  Heron continued as if Augustine had said nothing. "In the future, the human race has teetered on the edge, many times. They – we – survived only because the forces of good had slightly more knowledge than the forces of evil."

  "Nothing we know about her indicates she would give her knowledge to evil-doers."

  "That is not the danger, as I am sure you understand," Heron said. "Knowledge always leaks. It cannot be contained. Once that text finds its way into the future–"

  "Your Chronica text?" Augustine asked.

  "Yes. A copy already surfaced in Londinium, more than two millennia from now. Fortunately one of my people discovered it and destroyed it."

  "I understand," Augustine said.

  "Good."

  "What would you have me do?" Augustine said. "As you have told me more than once, the woman is well protected."

  "You have someone in your employ who loves her," Heron said, quietly. "He can penetrate her protection."

  "If he loves her, why would he kill her?"

  "Because you will enable him to understand that there are more important guides in this universe than personal, lustful love. As you yourself have come to realize."