The Plot to Save Socrates (Sierra Waters Book 1)

by Paul Levinson

  "One of the other books in the unrelated pile was of your authorship," she replied.

  "Oh?"

  "Your Pneumatica," she supplied.

  "Ah yes, one of my favorites -- the power of thin air."

  "Do you believe in travel through time?" she asked Heron.

  "Why do you ask? Because that is what our friend 'Andros' is apparently speaking about to Socrates in your document?"

  She nodded. "And I find the subject fascinating."

  Heron closed his eyes, as if to see time more clearly. "I do not think travel across space and travel across time are the same thing, at all. I agree with Socrates about this. I think space and time are very different. I do not believe time is just another dimension -- a fourth dimension -- like height, width, and depth."

  Jonah sharpened his attention.

  "Go on," Ampharete prompted. "Please."

  Heron's eyes remained closed. "I am not even completely sure that time exists, in a physical sense. It may be a kind of Platonic form, but unlike the objective, real forms, time may be a form that we rational beings create, or perhaps help create, with our minds."

  Ampharete focused on Heron's face. She wished she could see not only through his eyelids but into his soul. "Yes?"

  "And if, by some miracle of invention, we could travel through time, that could create paradoxes which would make Zeno of Elea's look like one of my automated little puppet shows, would it not?" His eyes danced beneath his lids, as if he were following such a puppet show. His lips curved slightly in unconscious merriment. "If I, today, had finished constructing a device, in this room, which allowed you to travel even a day into the past, and you used it to travel into the past to kill or otherwise distract me from completing the device, how would you have been able to travel in the first place into the past, with no device then constructed?" Now he opened his eyes and looked at her.

  "I would have to be exceedingly careful not to kill you, or otherwise prevent you from finishing your work," she said. "I have no doubt Jonah would protect you, in any case." She smiled at Jonah, who returned it.

  "But your care -- and Jonah's -- might not be sufficient. Suppose a man on a camel stopped, for a few moments, to admire your shape as you strode through Alexandria yesterday. He resumes his travel, at which point I have walked in front of him. His camel, frightened, kicks me in the head. I am hurt, and unable to finish my work on the device which brought you back to yesterday."

  Ampharete smiled with full luminosity. "Thank you, on both accounts."

  Heron looked puzzled. "The first is for my compliment. The second?"

  "Is for demonstrating how much serious thought you have already given to time travel," Ampharete replied. "I doubt that many others, if any, in Alexandria ad Aegyptum have done so."

  * * *

  Ampharete, drained from her day's journey and the evening's events, accepted Heron's invitation to sleep in one of the bedrooms adjoining the main room.

  Heron and Jonah examined the manuscript. Jonah began to read aloud from a part in the middle:

  Andros: Think of the good you could do, if you lived but another ten years, even another year.

  Socrates: As I said to Crito, I would do more harm than good, if those extra years, or year, were to come to me illegitimately.

  Andros: Must a life always a prisoner to the circumstances which brought it to be? Cannot a child born of an illegitimate union do good in life?

  Socrates: Yes, but that is a different circumstance than the one you are proposing to me.

  Andros: In what way, Socrates?

  Socrates: A child born of an illegitimate union had no decision, no part to play, in the process that brought that child to be. I, on the other hand, am fully aware of my circumstances, and, moreover, would be not only aware but an active participant in the escape you are proposing.

  Andros: Suppose I were to take you with me, against your will. Would that remove your compliance in the circumstances of your escape, and the moral consequences you draw from it?--

  "It's standard Socratic chatter," Heron interrupted. "Anyone could be its author."

  "You find this unexceptional?"

  "In form and style, yes. In content, in the story it purports to tell ... I certainly think it bears more scrutiny.... If I had to wager, I would say it was indeed Plato's handiwork."

  "You think Plato wrote this?" Jonah asked.

  Heron shrugged. "The simplest explanations, the ones that require the least number of components, are usually the best. That is the way mechanical objects work, too. That is an important principle. So, yes, Plato is the accepted author of all of the other Socratic dialogs. Before we explore the possibility that this dialog had another author, we must first examine the question: why would you think that Plato is not the author?"

  "Because it is not part of the traditional Platonic collection," Jonah replied.

  "Perhaps Plato thought this dialog did not merit preservation."

  "So you think this is a tale of unreal events and places, like Plato's Atlantis?" Jonah asked.

  "I would not be so sure that the Atlantis is an account of something unreal," Heron replied. "As for this Andros story, there are more reasons than untruth to want a story unpreserved, unknown to posterity."

  "Sometimes we might want that silent fate for a story precisely for the opposite reason ... Is that what are you saying? Because it conveys a dangerous truth that the author would rather not be known?"

  "This is complicated," Heron said, looking at the mosaic on the floor and then the manuscript on the table.

  "Is it possible she is right," Jonah gestured to the door behind which their visitor slept, "and you yourself wrote this sometime in the future?"

  Heron laughed, a little. "I guess that is something I will have to find out."

  "Does it bear something unique of your stamp, the way you organize words, the way you think?" Jonah picked up the manuscript, and unscrolled it further.

  "Do you see that here?" Heron asked. He took the manuscript from Jonah.

  "I am not sure."

  * * *

  Heron offered his student lodging, too, but Jonah had important errands to run, at the home of his parents, early the next morning.

  "Should I take this?" he inquired, about the manuscript.

  "You are not likely to do any copying tonight," Heron replied. "But I think I have enough strength to give it another reading."

  Jonah nodded his leave.

  Heron returned to the manuscript.

  One part interested him, in particular. It actually appeared several times in the dialog, in slightly different words, but all saying the same thing.

  Heron looked at one of those sections.

  Socrates: It will make no difference, to the present or the future of the world, if I die here or escape with you.

  Socrates first said that, right after Andros' offer -- or threat -- to remove Socrates from the prison, against his will...

  Heron needed to think about that. He wanted to ponder its meaning, before he discussed it with anyone, including his trusted student...

  * * *

  Jonah finished his tasks earlier than expected the next morning, and proceeded, quickly, to the Library. They were just a few readers in the spacious main hall. They bent over labelled cupboards, backs to Jonah. The pale pastels of their garments blended seamlessly with the tiles on the walls.

  Jonah entered Heron's special quarters, very quietly, in case Ampharete was still asleep.

  Heron was an early riser, but there was no sign of him, either near the hearth or in his bedroom. So he was already gone.

  Jonah looked under the table, in case his mentor had left a note which had fallen off, but the floor was empty as well.

  Jonah considered his next move. He could not be sure that Ampharete was in her room, either. He could go to her door, and listen ... for what? Her snoring? A woman as graceful as she certainly could not snore ... Maybe he would hear rustling? Something about his listening
at her door, even for good reasons, felt distasteful to him. He had no wish to invade her privacy ... at least, not without her participation...

  In the end, he decided, unhappily, that a sharp rap on her door was his best course of action. He applied his hand to the task.

  No response from the bedroom.

  He tried again.

  Still no response.

  She must have left the premises, too.

  He opened the door, just to confirm....

  Ampharete looked beautiful in bed, half uncovered, completely asleep, ringlets of rich, brown hair on her neck and shoulders...

  Jonah withdrew, fast, and closed the door. He knew he would not be able to long resist what he saw. Her image was still all he could see ... It drew him ... She was … intoxicating...

  He sat, awkwardly, at the table, and tried to recover his thoughts. Ampharete was still here, Heron was not, that was good -- or, what was good was that Ampharete was here.

  He saw the ringlets of hair, on her soft skin, again .... She must have been a sound sleeper--

  Now he did hear rustling in her room.

  Her door opened.

  She poked her head out. "Jonah..."

  * * *

  He fixed a breakfast of bread, honey, dates, and water mixed with a splash of wine for Ampharete. Heron's kitchen was well stocked, and Jonah had always been told to help himself to its provisions.

  "Do you, per chance, have another copy of the manuscript?" Jonah asked.

  "You did not make a copy of it?"

  "I left the manuscript with Heron last night, and he apparently took it with him," Jonah said.

  "You have the impression Heron will be gone for a while?"

  "I do not know," Jonah said.

  "I wish I had heard him leave," Ampharete reflected. "But I was exhausted last night. In the arms of Morpheus as soon as I reclined."

  Jonah wished those arms were his. He felt blood flowing in his cheeks. "You do not seem disturbed about Heron's absence. You travelled all this distance to see him..."

  Ampharete smiled. "His leaving tells me something useful."

  "What would that be?"

  "Obviously, something about my presence, the manuscript I carried, provoked his departure."

  "To where, do you think?"

  Ampharete finished the last of her morning wine before she answered. "I would think there is a good chance he went back to Athens."

  "He visited Athens several years ago," Jonah remarked.

  "I meant much further back than that," Ampharete said.

  Jason regarded her. "You think that, despite what he told you, he indeed has a time traveling device, and he used it to go back to Athens at the time of the death of Socrates?"

  "I think that is a possibility, yes," Ampharete maintained.

  "If he were able to travel to the past, in any kind of measured way, then he could use that same device to return to the present. And he would have returned right after he left," Jonah responded.

  "That assumes many things," Ampharete said, darkly.

  "You think he died in the past?" Jonah asked. "Who are you? What is the source of your knowledge?"

  "I have no certain knowledge of anything."

  Jonah turned his face away. "We shall see."

  * * *

  Ampharete saw more works of Aristotle than she knew existed, in the next few days, as well as works by his student, Theophrastus -- 240 texts addressing everything from ethics to physics. She also saw many works by Heron, but nothing of the man.

  Jonah said she could stay in Heron's quarters as long as she liked. She accepted his offer. No one bothered her there, just the specters that had accompanied her to Alexandria in the first place...

  But she knew Jonah did not trust her. How could he? Certainly he knew much of what his mentor was doing. He therefore had to have some big inkling of why she was so interested in Heron, why she had come to Alexandria. She had in fact done little to disguise it.

  She also knew that Jonah was unhappy that she did not have another copy of the manuscript. "I know where to obtain others," she finally decided to tell Jonah, on the fourth evening of her visit, as they walked along the shore.

  "Where?"

  "Suppose I told you no place in this world right now."

  "You mean, someplace in the past? Are we talking about that again? Where, Socratic/Platonic Athens?"

  "Yes, possibly. But not only there."

  "Where else?"

  "Not only then," she said.

  "You mean the future."

  Ampharete stared out at the Pharos Lighthouse, the seventh Wonder of the World. It was the only one that performed an actual task. It was apt that Heron the inventor made his home here.... But she agreed with Heron and Jonah that the Library of Alexandria and its myriad combs of honeyed knowledge was a greater wonder still...

  She returned her attention to Jonah. "If the story in the dialog is true, then there is no reason it might not have been written in the future, and carried back here."

  Jonah looked out at the sea. "Who are you? Where do you come from? I have asked you more than once, and you have never given an answer."

  Ampharete followed his gaze to the sea. "Out there. That is where I come from."

  "I know you are not talking about Rome, or Gaul, or even the ruins of Carthage. I doubt you are speaking even of Atlantis."

  Ampharete laughed. "Which is more absurd? That someone could be from Atlantis, or from the future?"

  "Atlantis would be less so -- it invokes no paradox."

  Ampharete studied him. A cold, sharp breeze snapped through his black hair.

  "Are you from Atlantis, then?" he asked her.

  "Both," she said. "I am from both." And she reached for him, and kissed him on the cheek. Jonah, surprised for a second, reciprocated, and pulled her close. He rested his hand on her waist, and kissed her face again.

  She pulled away, after a moment.

  "I know," Jonah said, breathless, "not here."

  She shook her head and turned back to the sea.

  She could feel his hot, dark eyes on the nape of her neck.

  "I must leave here now," she said. "I stayed too long already."

  * * *

  They met very early the next morning in Heron's room.

  Ampharete was ready to leave.

  "I want to go with you to Athens," Jonah said. "But I am loathe to leave Alexandria in Heron's absence."

  "I had a mentor once, too, whom I may have loved as dearly as you do Heron," Ampharete told Jonah. "He encouraged me. He..."

  "What happened to your mentor?"

  "Perhaps the same as with Heron," she said, slowly. "I do think there is a chance I might locate Heron, in my travels .... but the future is always opaque."

  Jonah smiled, ruefully. "Even for those who ply the currents of time?"

  "Especially so."

  "Were you ... blown off course at some point in your journey?"

  "You might say that, yes."

  "Do you think you might reach some place you did not intend when you leave Alexandria?"

  "Yes, that is a real possibility."

  Jonah closed his eyes, and rubbed them....

  "I would like to accompany you. Would that be possible?"

  "I would value your ... companionship," Ampharete said, carefully.

  "I understand," Jonah said.

  Ampharete sighed. "I first need to inquire about getting a boat."

  * * *

  Ampharete had a fair supply of Roman currency tucked away in her garments. She booked passage for two on an old galley, the Lux, with drab sails and long oars. It was scheduled to head northwest in Mare Nostrum. "Better to travel as anonymously as possible," she told Jonah. They looked back at Alexandria as the Lux left the harbor. The sun hung low and the city gleamed.

  The captain was a wiry Phoenician named Melqat. "The Romans own the sea, yet they leave the captaining to their conquered," Ampharete advised Jonah.

  "In the cas
e of the Phoenicians, that is commendable," Jonah said. "They know the seas better than anyone."

  They came upon Melqat as they strolled the ship, after a quiet dinner of provisions Jonah had taken, in haste, from Heron's quarters at the Library. Melqat was looking at the stars.

  "Greetings," he said to them, in a polyglot but passable Greek.

  "What do you forecast of the sailing to Athens?" Ampharete inquired.

  "The Zephyr is kind tonight. I expect an easy trip to Piraeus."

  The westerly wind was not only steady but warm. Ampharete and Jonah stayed up most of the night, observing the stars, talking about the food and drink in Piraeus, and how long they should pursue the pleasures of the Athenian port before proceeding to the Academy and its library....

  But the weather turned worse the next morning. By afternoon, the Lux was being whipped around like a puppet in Heron's steam show. "What happened to Zephyr," Ampharete called out to Melqat, as he and his mates worked to secure the lighter cargo.

  "It seems Poseidon had other ideas," the Phoenician replied.

  By evening, they were in a full-fledged gale. The sails were brought down, the oars came in. "We are not going anywhere in that," Melqat informed Jonah and Ampharete.

  "Is the ship safe?" Jonah asked.

  "Oh, the Lux has seen much fouler than this," Melqat assured them.

  But Ampharete was not assured. "Our ship may be safe," she said to Jonah after Melqat had walked on, "but our itinerary could be blown to Hades."

  Jonah nodded and clutched his midsection. "Not to mention what I ate this morning."

  "We have medicine for that." She reached into her robe and gave Jonah a small capsule. "Swallow this," she said.

  Jonah looked dubious. "What about you?"

  "I have never been bothered by the sea," Ampharete replied.

  A big swell convinced him. Jonah put the capsule in his mouth and gulped it down.

  * * *

  The temperature remained high, the wind strong and wet. Ampharete was sure it was blowing in the wrong direction. She and Jonah found a place that wasn't soaked. They drank wine and discussed places -- real, imagined, in between -- places that Ampharete said would be real, someday. "Imagine a world that ran on the mechanical principles Heron has discovered, with machines that themselves were commanded by mathematical equations. That is my world," she said.