The Plot to Save Socrates (Sierra Waters Book 1)

by Paul Levinson

  "You do not want to be dropped into a nest of Heron's men, your adversaries," Socrates said.

  Sierra considered. "We have no better choice. To wait here is to court worse danger..." That was certainly true for Socrates. Everyone in Athens knew he was sentenced to die, and some would have been determined to make sure that happened.... Including, sadly, Socrates himself.

  "Such calculations are beyond my grasp," Socrates said. "I promised to accompany you. I will sit in the chair if that is your wish."

  * * *

  The two sat in their chairs -- perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time, from 399 BC, and a doctoral student with a half-finished dissertation, from 2042 AD. The philosopher had no idea what degrees in philosophy even were, though he lived them every day of his life.

  Sierra programmed the Socrates Chair to leave the same time as hers. She apparently had at least that level of control.

  The bubbles ascended.

  * * *

  [Athens, 2061 AD]

  A split second. The universe in a grain of sand... No, eternity in a grain of sand in an hour-glass.... How could so much be traversed in so little time?

  The bubble around Sierra receded. She had a momentary, disquieting thought: If for some reason Socrates arrived a few seconds or minutes later, wouldn't that be dangerous for her, just standing in the open, in the same room or wherever as these chairs? No, people travelled together in time all the time. The chairs had to take that into account.... Sierra laughed, ironically. Yeah. All the time, sure….

  But the bubble was gone around each chair, and there was Socrates in his chair.... Unbelievable, though maybe not any more so than meeting Socrates in the first place....

  She helped the philosopher out of his chair.

  "The air smells strange," Socrates said.

  "Yes, it does," Sierra said.

  "Which means this is likely not your time, either," Socrates said.

  "Yes, let us look around the room, and see if we can find out when."

  There was a bin of clothing, in the customary place. It contained coveralls, made of a very thin, soft, pleasing material. "This looks like one size fits everyone," Sierra said to herself, and Socrates. "I mean, this should probably fit you," she said to Socrates, "and you probably should remove your robe, and put this on your body."

  "So I do not attract attention," Socrates said.

  "Yes. Now we need to look for money ... to purchase our means of further travel, if need be," Sierra said.

  "I understand."

  There was a wafer in her coverall. She examined it. A tiny screen lit up. It had a picture of her, and a picture of Socrates. As Sierra stared at the picture of Socrates -- it looked like it had just been taken, no doubt when Socrates was in the chair -- it changed to the picture of her. And then it stayed that way--

  "Ah, I get it," she said to Socrates. "Look at your little ... tablet. Looking at it triggers some sort of picture-making device, in the tablet, so that it records who is looking at it. And it freezes the image."

  "Picture device?"

  "An instant painting," Sierra replied... "Uh, like a reflection in a pond, but it becomes permanent."

  Socrates slowly nodded. "But for what purpose?"

  "It is probably proof of identity," Sierra said. "A living parchment that tells anyone who looks at it who we are."

  * * *

  They left the house. "The sooner we get away from here, the safer we will be from Heron," Sierra said.

  The day was bright outside. Sierra looked around. "I wonder what year this is -- it seems pretty much the same as my time."

  Socrates was transfixed. "It seems a deer to me," he slowly said.

  "What?"

  Socrates shook his head, and looked confused. "I am sorry," he said. "Sometimes I choose ... the wrong words. Not intentionally. I meant to say, it seems like a dream...."

  Sierra looked at him. "Yes, and my city will seem just as marvelous a dream to you, too. And you will have time to savor it."

  Socrates shook his head no.

  "We need to leave this place -- and time -- as speedily as we can," Sierra said. "This time and place were set by Heron on his chairs. We cannot do anything about the time from here. But we can change the place. We need to go elsewhere."

  Sierra started walking. Socrates reluctantly followed.

  But what year was this, Sierra wondered. It was Athens, no doubt about that. She could tell from its looks, and from the fact that the chairs travelled in time not space. And it looked like the Athens of her time, the Athens of the 2040s … millennia of architecture densely mixed, with a light dusting of intelligent snow -- telecommunicating confection, as the commercials put it -- a myriad of tiny cells that could relay signals from phones or any other devices of communication....

  She had never been in the farther future of Heron's world. Did it look like this? Or had Heron set the chairs to 2042 AD?

  She had to find out the date. The time-traveller's eternal question....

  She soon had her answer. From a floating, shimmering window, about six feet in the air above the road. It displayed the front page of the Athenian Global Village. The dates on the rippling mauve masthead -- there were twelve of them, in twelve different languages and colors -- all said 13 April 2061.

  Why? Why so close to her time? Heron the engineer did nothing by accident...

  Sierra summoned the window. Good, the systems still understood her New York accent. "The airport," she said slowly, clearly, in English. "Please bring a cab here to take my companion and me to the Athens Realport." She hoped the name had not changed.

  "Your means of transport will arrive in approximately 9 minutes," a male iphonic voice replied. It spoke English in a warm contralto, with an undercurrent of Greek accent, and sounded good enough to kiss.

  * * *

  [Athens, 399 BC]

  Alcibiades looked at Heron, sitting on the floor against the wall of what had just been Socrates' prison. He tightened his grip on his knife--

  One of his trusted men -- Antisthenes -- put his hand on Alcibiades' arm. "This is not yet over. We may need his help."

  "We cannot trust him. How can he help us?"

  "I know the future, remember?" Heron spoke up. "I know the fate of Socrates."

  "Why should we believe what you tell us?" Alcibiades responded. "You would do better to think of your own fate." Alcibiades removed Antisthenes' hand, and took a menacing step towards Heron.

  The engineer smiled serenely.

  Men burst into the house, shouting--

  "They are Heron's," Alcibiades said to Antisthenes, "I recognize the language." Alcibiades pulled Heron to his feet, and placed his knife against the inventor's neck. "You were right about letting him live," Alcibiades said to Antisthenes. Both men turned Heron around, and shoved him forward. "Move," Alcibiades barked.

  * * *

  [Athens, 2061 AD]

  Socrates felt more at home in the Realport than the cab, which made sense. "A chariot that pulls itself?" Socrates had gawked out of the sleek panes of the taxi the whole time. Sierra hadn't been sure how much of her explanation Socrates had understood. Now she had to try to explain as best she could the hypersonic -- or, at very least, air travel...

  "It travels the air the same way that boats travel the sea," Sierra said. "Except much faster."

  Socrates touched his stomach. "How will it feel to me? The horseless chariot made me a little sick."

  "The ride should be pretty smooth," Sierra said. "We have had air travel for more than 150 years. Someone once said air ships were like horizontal elevators .... No, you would not know what an elevator was. Forgive me. Forget that analogy."

  Socrates was already thinking about something else. "You are surprised that Heron's chairs brought us so close to your time, and not to his... Why do you suppose that happened?"

  "It all depends on whether Heron expected us to escape. If not, then the chairs were likely set for him, and they brought us here because he had
something he wanted to do here, with you. But if our escape was all part of Heron's plan, then the chairs brought us here because there was something Heron wanted us to do here--"

  "Or something he wanted done to us..."

  "Yes. But we lack sufficient information to decide which is the correct explanation. Aristotle -- the student of your student -- might have said that we do not have enough knowledge of the premises to draw logical conclusions..."

  "Student of my student?"

  "Yes, he will be Plato's student, and for many centuries he will be considered the greatest philosopher of all time."

  Socrates looked more perplexed than when he had been gazing out of the window of the computer-driven cab. "Student of my student," he said again, quietly.

  "In a sense all of us, every thinking person in the Western world, are students of your students," Sierra said.

  * * *

  [Athens, 399 BC]

  Two bands of armed men converged on the house that had been the prison of Socrates. One were Heron's Romans, brought back to 405 BC and trained in marital arts of the future at secret camps. The other party, numbering more than forty, and four times the size of the Roman group, were Alcibiades' soldiers, loyal Athenians to the core. They were fierce fighters. But the superior techniques of the Romans equalized the contest...

  Three Romans were the first to enter the house.

  Alcibiades confronted them with a knife to the neck of Heron. "Tell them to lay down their weapons," Alcibiades instructed Heron. "Tell them to tell the rest of their group to do the same."

  Heron spoke in Latin.

  The Romans stood their ground, kept their silence and weapons in hand.

  Five of Alcibiades' men rushed in behind them.

  The Romans turned and fought.

  Alcibiades threw Heron to the ground. "Guard him," he shouted to Antisthenes, and lit into the Romans--

  Antisthenes stood over Heron, the tip of his blade an inch from his neck. "Tell me about the fate of Socrates," he said.

  * * *

  [Athens, 2061 AD]

  Finding and booking a flight to New York proved easy. The wafers took care of payment, as they had with the taxi, and with passport matters as well, as Sierra had figured.

  Socrates leaned back in his seat after the hypersonic had taken off. "You have perfected comfort in your time," he said.

  "We have perfected many things," Sierra replied. "But not the soul."

  Socrates looked at her. "You have been listening to -- reading -- my words."

  Sierra regarded the grey-blue swirl beyond the window.

  "Are we really in the sky?" Socrates asked.

  "Yes."

  "And if I were to walk outside, would I fly like a god or die?"

  "Both. You would fly for a while, coast through the clouds, then fall to the Earth and die."

  "Like Icarus. Not a bad way to die," Socrates said.

  "Better than hemlock?"

  "Most ways of dying are better than hemlock," Socrates replied. "I never contested that."

  "I know. You did not want to put yourself above the city of Athens."

  Socrates smiled, strangely. "And here I am, above the city of Athens after all."

  "We are closer to the Pillars of Hercules," Sierra said.

  Socrates pressed his face to the window.

  "Are you glad you escaped?" Sierra asked.

  "I am a human being, just like you," Socrates replied. "I enjoy learning, just like you. I would enjoy another lifetime, yes, contemplating these wonders you have shown me." He gestured to the window. "I want to live, just like you. But--"

  Sierra looked at him. "You can bring so much to the world. You must live."

  "I cannot."

  "You must--"

  "No! You do not understand. I cannot live, however much you and I may want that, and even though I have escaped the hemlock. I cannot live because whatever happens, whatever anyone does, I will die. Soon."

  "I ... you are right, I do not understand. Why will you die?"

  "Because I have an illness that eats me away, inside, and it cannot be cured."

  "But...." Sierra stopped, and tried to fathom what Socrates was saying.

  Socrates nodded. "Now you begin to understand. I have known, for almost a year, that I do not have much longer to live. I have seen many physicians -- with different philosophies and different skills -- and they all agree. I swore them to secrecy."

  Sierra's eyes were wide, in the beginning of comprehension. "You provoked Anytus and the trial. I was feeling guilty about that, because I accidentally provoked him in an earlier conversation."

  "He would have proceeded against me with or without your conversation," Socrates replied. "His anger at me runs very deep."

  "And you argued your case, but in a way that antagonized the 500 as much as possible."

  "Yes." Socrates smiled, painfully, crookedly. "I almost lost that battle and won an acquittal."

  Sierra shook her head. "Why?"

  "I did not want my inevitable death to be meaningless," Socrates said. "If I am to die, let it make a last proposition, a final argument from me. Let it teach the world, or try to teach the world, one more thing."

  "You would have been regarded as noble anyway," Sierra said.

  "I am not so sure," Socrates said. "And my acceptance of the death sentence was not so much about my nobility, as it is about the corruption, the failure, of the Athenian democracy -- the stupid mob rule."

  "But you may not need to die now," Sierra said.

  "What?"

  "We are in the future now. Medicine has changed. We laugh in the face of most fatal illnesses now."

  "I do not think I will able to laugh very long. Heron knows about my illness. He is sure it cannot be cured, even in your world."

  "That makes no sense -- why would he want you to escape, if you cannot be cured?"

  "I do not know."

  Sierra considered. "Even if you cannot be cured in my world, this world, we could grow another version of you, everything other than your brain, and remove the part of you that causes the illness or allows it happen. And then put your brain into your second, healthy body. We have already done ... procedures like that, in my world. In Heron's world, it must be commonplace."

  "No," Socrates said. "Even in Heron's most advanced world, that would not work. He discussed this possibility with me -- he suggested it, and looked into it. Apparently, my illness arises in the most fundamental part of me, the part that makes me who I am--"

  "Your genes?" Sierra spoke the last word in English.

  Socrates nodded. "That was the name he used. The part that makes my brain what it is, what I am. Heron says brains give rise to our thoughts, are the true dwellings of our souls?"

  "Yes."

  Socrates nodded, again. "Therefore, no matter how many times my body is regrown, no matter how many times my brain is regrown, it will still give rise to this illness. The ... bad seeds ... that cause this cannot be removed without my becoming a different person. Heron believes my current brain is already afflicted. I feel healthy, now, but my lexicon ... becomes jumbled sometimes, as you heard."

  Sierra was unable to speak.

  "It did occur to me that Heron could be lying," Socrates said. "But I could not fathom a motive. He was trying to convince me to escape -- why would he say it was futile, if it was not?"

  Sierra shook her head sadly. "You are right. That makes no sense, either.... We can confirm Heron's diagnosis with our devices, when we arrive in New York. I mean, I hope our devices do not confirm it, but...."

  "I understand," Socrates said. "Are you disappointed to discover that I am not such a noble soul, that I am willing to manipulate my death for my ends? I believe Alcibiades was disappointed. I could see it in his face."

  "Alcibiades knows this?"

  "Yes, I told him in the prison, right before you arrived."

  Sierra sighed. "He did seem more ... troubled than usual."

  Socrates made no re
sponse. He was silent for a moment, then returned to the obvious question. "Why do you suppose Heron remained so eager for me to escape, knowing what he knows about my doom?"

  "I am not sure," Sierra said. "Perhaps for Heron the inventor, the process is more important than the result. If the process works for you, it can work for someone else in history, someone even more important to Heron. Or perhaps he just wanted whatever time, however short, he could have with you now. But who knows what is in Heron's mind -- who knows what--"

  A cool, female voice announced that the plane was approaching New York.

  "We had better focus on what you may need to do after this ship reaches its port," Sierra said.

  * * *

  [Athens, 399 BC]

  Alcibiades and Antisthenes regarded two receding groups of men -- Heron and a few of his Romans pursued by a new band of Alcibiades' militia.

  Antisthenes had taken his sword off of Heron to help Alcibiades. They had succeeded in killing the Romans around them, but Heron and three of his soldiers had escaped. One of Alcibiades' men had earlier gone for reinforcements. They had arrived, and now were going after Heron.

  Three of Alcibiades' men emerged from the house. They reported that the dead body of Socrates was in the appropriate room. Only Alcibiades and Sierra and now Antisthenes knew that the body was not really Socrates, but the body that Heron had brought with him from the future...

  Alcibiades looked again at the two rapidly receding groups. He turned to face Antisthenes, "I cannot leave my men to Heron's demons. If I understand the future correctly, it can wait for as long as I need to destroy Heron here. Take two others with you. I have told you how to reach the house with the chairs. Guard it, continuously, until I return. I--" He winced and reached for his side. He smiled, but his legs buckled--

  "Alcibiades!" Antisthenes reached out to support him.

  "I am not seriously hurt...."

  Antisthenes moved his bloodied arm from Alcibiades' side.

  "It is not a mortal wound," Antisthenes said, examining the cut a Roman weapon had made, "but you need rest."

  Alcibiades' eyes closed. He moaned.

  Antisthenes summoned two of Alcibiades' men.

  Alcibiades rallied, briefly. His eyes fluttered open, then closed.