"Our time has become dangerous for any decent person," Synesius said.
Jonah nodded in agreement.
"You were in 413 just yesterday?" Sierra asked Jonah and Ruth. "But how did you get here so fast? The trip to Athens–"
"There was no need to go to Athens," Jonah said. "There is a room with a chair in the Library."
"But – Heron told you about it?" Sierra asked.
"No," Jonah replied. "I am not even sure that Heron knows about it."
"Then who built it?" Sierra asked.
"Possibly someone at this very table," Jonah said. "Most likely you, in your future."
* * *
Sierra settled into sleep, in a corner, with no man beside her. Max understood. No point in flaunting to Synesius that Sierra wanted to be with someone else, even though Synesius seemed happy enough to sleep next to the android. For that matter, no point in Sierra advertising her affection for Max to Jonah, either, who she felt still cared for her in some way more than a friend even though he was married. Sierra pulled the blanket around her. The only man missing in this potential ménage à whatever was Alcibiades. She fell asleep holding herself and thinking of him.
Chapter Eleven
[Carthage, 413 AD]
The Nubian ushered Heron into Augustine's room and left.
Augustine lifted his gaze from a scroll and smiled brightly. "Good to see you looking like your old self, for better or worse."
Heron returned the smile. "Thank you."
"You were here just last week, looking like me." Augustine said. "I gather you have been away longer than that to your future."
Heron nodded. "Three months. But the face-change took less than an hour."
"Ah . . . well, not much has changed here since we last met, in as much as that was just six days ago. And during the three months in your life?"
"Not much there either, I am afraid," Heron replied. "This Synesius of yours seems to be indestructible or in possession of a lucky charm. Two attempts to kill him have succeeded, only to be reversed by time travelers moments later."
"I have not talked to Synesius since you and I discussed how he might be of help to us," Augustine said. "You no longer wish to pursue that possibility?"
Heron shook his head no. "Events have moved beyond that."
"You have opponents adept at the same time travel game as you," Augustine said.
"Apparently," Heron replied, "though they are your opponents, too."
Augustine accepted that. "And have you discovered exactly how they gained the knowledge to travel through time?"
"Ampharete – Hypatia – Sierra Waters – whatever her name - knows how to use the chairs," Heron said. "And more than that."
"Oh?"
"Someone – quite possibly Hypatia - seems to know not only how to use the chairs, but to build them."
Augustine cocked his inquiring eyebrow even higher.
"And I am responsible," Heron said.
"You are responsible for all of this," Augustine said. "You committed knowledge of how to construct a time travel vehicle to a scroll. You dare not go back in time and stop your younger self because confronting your younger self invites the worst kind of paradox. Is my understanding of your predicament accurate?"
"You have given this much thought in just six days."
"I have thought of nothing else," Augustine said. "Do you have a plan?"
"Yes," Heron said. "I have to destroy the original scroll before it arrives in the future where the means of implementing its instructions exist. Destroying copies will not stop other copies from being made. I have taken other measures in case copies are already at large – I have affixed the title Chronica at the top of several texts which have nothing to do with travel across time, to confuse people in the future who might come upon a text by that name written by me. But that is not a complete solution, either. If I cannot confront or stop my younger self, our only option is to destroy the original. And if I cannot locate that scroll, our next best option is to let the Library burn as thoroughly as possible – an option which also has the merit of eliminating any other copies of the Chronica in the Library, though it would work only if the original was still lodged somewhere in the Library.
"Merit?" Augustine asked sarcastically. "One act of vanity, the writing of a single text, requires the burning of an entire library?" Augustine shook his head in disgust. "And if you do manage to eliminate your Chronica, the knowledge of how to build a time travel portal will simply vanish like a bad dream in the sunlight? We have already discussed this, I know, but I have yet to fathom exactly how that would transpire, in the minds of real people, in the real world."
"It is a dangerous enterprise, stealing pieces of readers' memories," Heron said softly. "But it is still preferable to making the mechanics of time travel available to everyone in the future."
"Have you discovered where and when in the Library your scroll is – or, if not in the Library, in whose possession?
"I wrote it in the time of Cleopatra. It is no longer there."
"How do you propose to locate it?" Augustine asked.
"I have a source of information who is with Hypatia," Heron replied. "I await a report."
[Alexandria, 150 AD]
"Looks as if we are the first to rise in the house of Jonah," Max said quietly to Sierra, the morning after their arrival. The two had just awoken on different sides of the big room, seen that they were the only two awake, and walked to the front of the house. Max opened the door and squinted at the chalky pastel of dawn. "It's beautiful out there," he said. "How about a walk by the sea?"
Sierra nodded. The two had both slept in their robes. She noticed a stylus, a clay bottle of ink, and several blank pieces of thin papyrus on the table. She quickly scribbled a note in Latin to their hosts and Synesius. "I don't want them to worry," she said to Max in English.
The two walked along the shore and let their hands brush together. Max clasped her hand. "We've come a long way in time and place since Quivett Neck, haven't we," Max said.
Sierra nodded and squeezed Max's hand. She also squeezed back a tear in her eye.
"I don't trust anyone other than you," Max repeated what he had told her the day before.
"I trust Jonah and Synesius," Sierra said.
"I guess we have no choice," Max said. "We need their help. But I'm just saying that in the end, as the ultimate guardian of our lives and your plan, I trust only you."
Sierra squeezed his hand harder and put her head on his shoulder.
"What exactly is your strategy now, by the way?" Max asked. "Have you revised it in light of the past few days?"
"No," Sierra said. "I still think the only reliable way to get texts out of Alexandria is by putting the scrolls into our to robes and hand delivering them to the future. Even if we can rely on the robot's loyalty, we can't rely on her memory holding up across time."
"So each of us takes four or five scrolls – some of the lost Aristotle, some authors completely lost to our history – and we deliver them to Appleton in the 19th century," Max said.
[Carthage, 413 AD]
Augustine and Heron concluded their conversation in the windy harbor. "If you board this ship now, you will be cut off from any new information," Augustine said.
"I know," Heron replied, "this is one of the great limitations of your long age in which information did not yet move at the speed of Hermes – at the speed of lightning. But if I do not leave now, I risk missing the only opportunity I may have to intercept my scroll before it is transported to the future and the cornucopia of transmission devices that flourish there."
Augustine furrowed his brow. "I think I have yet to fully master the metaphysics of time travel. What does it matter when you embark, if you know the time to which you must travel in the past or the future?"
"You are correct in your understanding, in general," Heron replied. "But I have found from cruel experience that opportunities are better taken at the time in which they are first revealed. Delay can lead
to complications from unforeseen factors. There is a saying attributed in the future to Brutus–"
"Julius Caesar's murderer?"
"Yes," Heron said. "'There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.'"
Augustine nodded. "Brutus in retrospect may have been more eloquent than the man in the flesh."
"Historians are in the business of embellishing history," Heron said. "Whereas I am in the business of attempting to actually improve it."
"Noble but dangerous," Augustine said, nodded his goodbye, and slowly walked away.
Heron regarded the receding bishop and briefly contemplated his important role in future history – it was worth tolerating his incessant criticism. Heron turned, called out to his legionaries on the ship, and boarded.
[Alexandria, 150 AD]
Max pointed to a figure walking towards them in the distance.
"It's just one person," Sierra said. "With your new combat prowess this shouldn't be much of a threat."
Max smiled tightly and grasped the hilt of the knife in his robe.
"It's a man," Sierra said. "He doesn't appear to be carrying any weapon."
"It's Jonah," Max said, and relaxed. Sierra did the same.
"I am sorry to interrupt your sojourn with the sea," Jonah approached and said, sincerely, "but I do not feel comfortable with you out of my sight. Heron's men could be anywhere."
Sierra nodded her understanding. "Should we return to your home?"
"Please," Jonah replied. "Ruth is preparing the breakfast."
The three continued Sierra and Max's discussion of strategy, to Max's slight discomfort.
"It would take a cohort bigger than the number of people who made the pyramids," Jonah said, "to rescue all of the texts in the Library."
"That is why I am thinking that we each save just a handful of scrolls to begin with," Sierra replied.
"And use the room in the Library with the chair to bring the texts into the future?" Jonah asked.
"I am not sure," Sierra said. "That was my plan when I discovered the room, and it is the logical choice, but that logic would not be missed by Heron."
"So, where then?" Jonah asked. "Athens?"
Sierra nodded.
"I'm of the opinion that we should not make that decision now," Max spoke up. "Keep our decision in a state of flux, a quantum mechanical state, so that wherever Heron might think we are going, we may or may not be there. Do you know about quantum mechanics?" Max directed the question to Jonah.
"No, but I grasp completely the strategy of keeping Heron guessing," Jonah replied.
"Quantum mechanics is a very advanced kind of natural philosophy, which says that on the tiniest level everything is in a constant state of flux, pending choices that people make, pending even what people are thinking," Sierra explained to Jonah, giving Max a quick flash of disapproval for trying to spotlight Jonah's understandable ignorance of future science. "According to quantum mechanics, a mere change of intention in a human mind can move a tiny particle. It's popularly referred to as 'mind over matter,' and its truth is still being debated in my time."
Jonah comprehended most of the explanation and noticed the flash at Max. "To make this more specific, I do not trust Synesius's slave – I do not know her, and she comes from a distant future which could well mean she is in contact with Heron and doing his bidding. We need to be careful about what we say in front of her – another reason to not make the decision about Alexandria or Athens until the last minute."
"On that, you and I can agree," Max said.
"Synesius seems to trust her implicitly," Sierra said. "He says he has good reason."
[between Carthage and Alexandria, on the sea, 413 AD]
Heron breathed in the warm tangy air, and closed his eyes in appreciation. What was it that John F. Kennedy had said? "When we go back to the sea … we go back to whence we came."
Except, Heron felt he was always going back to whence he had come, because he had been in so many times that it made his head hurt to think about it. And he had more pressing things to think about now than the sea.
He didn't move, but he pulled his thoughts away from the sea. His situation was even more desperate than he had let on to Augustine. He had just one chance, he knew, to stop what Sierra Waters was trying to do. Once his original manuscript with instructions about how to make time machines was recused from the flames of Alexandria, it would be too late to go back in time and stop that from happening. Armed with the knowledge that Heron had put in his scroll, people in the future would be able to send back all manner of protectors and protections to make sure the scroll was never burned. Even were Heron to attempt the paradoxical move of stopping his younger self from writing the Chronica, he was sure that, once that scroll fell into future hands, there would be a continuing procession of time travelers from the future to stop him from ever getting close to his younger self.
So he had to stop this now. And that depended on identifying the precise place and time that Sierra and her following would attempt their journey into the future.
[Alexandria, 150 AD]
"I think we should move as quickly as possible now," Sierra said to Max and Jonah, as the three approached Jonah's house. "Stay away from the room in the Library with the chair. Gather the scrolls – which are elsewhere in Library. Then decide – take chair or ship – and proceed."
"I was by the harbor yesterday," Jonah said. "I saw two good boats which will be leaving at noon today."
"Good," Sierra said.
"I think we should let Sierra make the decision," Max said, "about whether to go chair or ship."
"And that's to increase the state of flux?" Sierra asked, only partly in jest.
"That, and he does not trust anyone other than you," Jonah said.
"Correct on both accounts," Max replied.
The three entered Jonah's house. A table in the main room was laid out with cheeses, figs, dates, bread, wine, and water.
Ruth had been talking with Synesius and the android. She smiled at Jonah, Sierra, and Max, and invited everyone to the table. "I was torn between not feeding you too much, given the strenuous tasks you have ahead today, and feeding you well to keep up your strength, which you will also need today."
"And you decided to keep up our strength," Jonah said with an appreciative smile. "I concur."
The group was on the way to the Library less than an hour later.
"I still would prefer that you do not accompany us," Jonah said quietly to his wife.
Ruth smiled. "You have been promising to take me along with you on one of your trips through time since the Festival of Lights. I enjoy that kind of travel – what better time than this?"
"This is the worst time," Jonah replied. "You heard the conversation – Heron will do all in his power to find and kill us."
"That is why this is the best time," Ruth replied, with no smile. "I want to be by your side. I want to help save whatever I can of this time for the future."
Synesius, who had been at the head of the group, talking to the slave, slowed down. Jonah and Ruth caught up with the two. Max and Sierra, who had been at the rear, caught up with everyone. "The Library looks normal," Synesius said, gesturing the gleaming alabaster ahead.
"Meaning there are none of Heron's legionaries in view?" Max asked, with thinly concealed annoyance. "I have never known him to be so obvious."
"Nor have I," Synesius replied. "I was merely–"
"Let us each proceed to obtain our assigned scrolls," Sierra interrupted, "and then meet, as we discussed, in front of the Plato collection. Remember – if the scroll you are seeking is not where it should be, just choose whatever else is there. We do not have the time to look for missing scrolls now."
"And I will proceed to the harbor as we agreed," Jonah said, "and insure that at least one ship is available for our departure should we decide to leave by sea. Each of you will t
ake one additional scroll, which you will give to me when I return and meet you at the Plato collection."
[Alexandria, 413 AD]
Heron gazed with appreciation, as he had so many times, at the Pharos Lighthouse in the harbor of Alexandria. It would stand proud for almost another half millennium, until earthquakes began to take their toll. There was little that could be done to stop earthquakes in any age, and the technologies did not exist in this or any age in which the Lighthouse stood to make it resistant to earthquakes – tempered steel sinew would stick out like a gleaming silver tooth in any age prior to the 22nd century. And a pity that was, too.
His ship docked. He summoned four legionaries to accompany him to the Library. Then he instructed the amply paid ship captain. "If we do not return in three hours, proceed to Athens."
Heron and the four legionaries approached the Library. Everything depends upon what my informant tells me, he thought.
[Alexandria, 150 AD]
Sierra walked quickly to the section of the Library with Aristotle's holdings. Sixty-eight works, less than half of the philosopher's total number of writings, had survived or been re-discovered in her age in the middle of the 21st century. Sierra had found another 73 works in the time she had spent in the Library in the early 5th century AD. She counted 81 works here in 150 AD that were not in evidence in her own age, which meant that 8 of Aristotle's works had already succumbed to the flames of Theophilus, or otherwise dissolved in the acids of ignorance that beset Hypatia'a time, aided by Heron for his twisted reasons. Although most of Aristotle's works were likely lecture notes written by his students after his death, they still contained a rainforest of original wisdom on everything ranging from biology to logic, rhetoric to physics to poetry. Rescuing just four seemed a pittance, but she knew that was vastly better than none. She had long ago decided on the four, and the four rather than five. The four scrolls she had selected were long, as heavy in physical as intellectual weight. Some of her partners in rescue would be able to take five shorter texts. Carrying more than four or five risked attracting the attention of Heron's spies. And running at full speed in her robes, which is what she might well have to do, meant she had to be careful not to carry too much and drop it all. She had tested this, running down empty corridors in the Library, many times.
Unburning Alexandria (Sierra Waters) Page 15
