“Your Majesty, only a fool would bet against the conqueror of Granada,” said Santangel. Silently he added: Only an even bigger fool would bet against Colón.
The capitulations were written in the small hours of the morning, after much last-minute consultation between the counselors of the King and the Queen. When at dawn a beadle was sent to deliver the message to Colón, he returned flustered and upset. “He’s gone!” he cried.
“Of course he’s gone,” said Father Perez. “He was told that his conditions were rejected. But he will only have left at dawn. And I suspect he will not be riding quickly.”
“Then fetch him back,” said the Queen. “Tell him to present himself at once before me, for I am ready to conclude this affair at last. No, don’t say ‘at last.’ Now hurry.”
The beadle rushed from the court.
While they waited for Colón to be brought back, Santangel took Father Perez aside. “I didn’t figure Colón for a greedy man.”
“He’s not,” said Father Perez. “A modest man, in fact. Ambitious, but not the way you think.”
“In what way is he ambitious, then, if not the way I think?”
“He wanted the titles to be hereditary because he has spent his life pursuing this voyage,” said Perez. “He has no other inheritance for his son—no fortune, nothing, But with this voyage he will now be able to make his son, not just a gentleman, but a great lord. His wife died years ago, and he has many regrets. This is also his gift to her, and to her family, who are among the lesser nobility in Portugal.”
“I know the family,” said Santangel.
“You know the mother?”
“Is she still alive?”
“I think so,” said Perez.
“Then I understand. I’m sure the old lady made him keenly aware that any claim to gentility he had came through her family. It will be sweet indeed for Colón if he can turn it backward, so that any claim of true nobility for her family comes through their connection to him.”
“So you see,” said Perez.
“No, Father Juan Perez, I see nothing yet. Why did Colón put this voyage at risk, solely to gain such lofty titles and absurd commissions?”
“Perhaps,” said Father Perez, “because this voyage is not the end of his mission, but the beginning.”
“The beginning! What can a man do, having discovered vast new lands for Christ and Queen? Having been made viceroy and admiral? Having been given wealth beyond imagining?”
“You, a Christian, you have to ask me that?” said Perez. Then he walked away.
Santangel thought himself a Christian, but he never was sure what Perez meant. He thought of all sorts of possibilities, but they all sounded ludicrous because no man could possibly dream of accomplishing such lofty purposes.
Then again, no man could possibly dream of getting monarchs to agree to a mad voyage into unknown western seas with no high probability of success. And yet Colón had achieved it. So if he had dreams of reconquering the Roman Empire, or liberating the Holy Land, or driving the heathen Turk from Byzantium, or making a mechanical bird to fly to the moon, Santangel would not bet against him.
There was famine now, only in North America, but there was no surplus food anywhere else to relieve it. To send help required rationing in many other places. The tales of bloodshed and chaos in America persuaded the people of Europe and South America to accept rationing so that some relief could be sent. But it would not be enough to save everyone.
This hopeless inadequacy came to humanity as a terrible shock, not least because they had believed for two generations that at last the world was a good place to live. They had believed theirs was a time of rebirth, rebuilding, restoration. Now they learned that it was merely a rear guard action in a war whose conclusion was already decided before they were even born. Their work was in vain, because nothing could last. The Earth was too far gone.
It was in the midst of the agony of this realization that the first news came out about the Columbus project. The discussion was grim. When the choice came, it was not unanimous, but it was overwhelming. What else was there, really? To watch their children die of hunger? To take up arms again, and fight for the last scraps of food-producing land? Could anyone happily choose a future of caves and ice and ignorance, when there might be another way, if not for them and their children, then for the human race as a whole?
Manjam sat with Kemal who had come to wait out the voting with him. When the decision came, and Kemal knew that he would indeed be taking the voyage backward in time, he was at once relieved and frightened. It was one thing to plan one’s own death when the prospect was still remote. Now, though, it would be a matter of days before he went back in time, and then no more than weeks before he would stand scornfully before Columbus and say, “Did you think Allah would let a Christian discover these new lands? I spit on your Christ! He had not the power to sustain you against the power of Allah! There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet!”
And then someday perhaps, a future searcher in Pastwatch would see him standing there, and would nod his head and say, That was the man who stopped Columbus. That was the man who gave his life to create this good and peaceful world we live in. That was the man who gave the human race a future. As much as Yewesweder before him, this man chose the course of humanity.
That would be a life worth living, thought Kemal. To earn a place in history that could be spoken of in the same breath with Yewesweder himself.
“You seem melancholy, my friend,” said Manjam.
“Do I?” said Kemal. “Yes. Sad and happy, both at once.”
“How do you think Tagiri will take this?”
Kemal shrugged with some impatience. “Who can figure out this woman? She works all her life for this, and then we have to practically tie her down to keep her from going out urging people to vote against the very thing she worked for!”
“I don’t think it’s hard to understand her, Kemal,” said Manjam. “It’s as you said—it was the force of her will that caused the Columbus project to reach this point. She was responsible for it. That was too much of a burden for her to bear alone. Now, though, she can be satisfied inside herself that she opposed the destruction of our time, that the final decision was taken away from her, was forced on her by the will of the vast majority of humankind. Now her responsibility for the end of our time is not hers alone. It will be shared by many, borne on many shoulders. She can live with it now.”
Kemal chuckled grimly. “She can live with it—for how many days? And then she will wink out of existence along with all the rest of humanity in this world. What does it matter now?”
“It matters,” said Manjam, “because she has those few days, and because those few days are all the future she has. She will spend it with clean hands and a peaceful heart.”
“And is this not hypocrisy?” asked Kemal. “For she did cause it, just as much as ever.”
“Hypocrisy? No. The hypocrite knows what he really is, and labors to conceal it from others in order to gain from their misplaced faith in him. Tagiri fears the moral ambiguity in something that she knows she must do. She cannot live with not doing it, and yet fears she cannot live with doing it, either. So conceals it from herself in order to proceed with what she must do.”
“If there’s a difference there, it’s damned hard to see,” said Kemal.
“That’s right,” said Manjam. “There’s a difference. And it’s damned hard to see.”
From time to time, as he rode toward Palos, Cristoforo pressed his hand to his chest, to feel the stiff parchment tucked into his coat. For you, my Lord, my Savior. You gave this to me, and now I will use it for you. Thank you, thank you, for granting my prayer, for letting this also be a gift to my son, to my dead wife.
As he rode long into the day, Father Perez fell silent beside him, a memory came into his mind. His father, stepping forward eagerly toward a table where richly dressed men were seated. His father poured wine. When would that have happened? Fathe
r is a weaver. When did he pour wine? What am I remembering? And why does it come to me now of all times?
No answer came to his mind, and the horse plodded on, pounding dust up into the air with every step. Cristoforo thought of what lay ahead. Much work, outfitting a voyage. Would he even remember how, all these years since the last voyage he was really a part of? No matter. He would remember what he needed to remember, he would accomplish all he needed to accomplish. The worst obstacle was past. He had been lifted up by the arms of Christ, and Christ would carry him across the water and bring him home again. Nothing would stop him now.
9
_____
Departures
Cristoforo stood near the helm, watching as the sailors readied the caravel for departure. A part of him longed to skim down from his lofty station and join in, to handle the sheets and sails aloft, to carry the last and freshest of the stores aboard, to be doing something with his hands, his feet, his body to make him a part of the crew, part of the living organism of the ship.
But that was not his role here. God had chosen him to lead, and it was in the nature of things that the captain of a ship, let alone the commander of an expedition, had to remain as aloof and unapproachable to the crew as Christ himself was to the Church he headed.
The people gathered at the shore and on the hills overlooking the sea were not there to cheer on his mission, Cristoforo knew. They were there because Martín Pinzón, their favorite among sailors, their hero, their darling, was taking a crew of their sons and brothers and uncles and cousins and friends out into the open ocean on a voyage of such bravery as to seem madness. Or was it of such madness as to seem bravery? It was Pinzón in whom their trust resided, Pinzón who would bring their menfolk home if anyone did at all. What was this Cristóbal Colón to them, except a courtier who had wangled his way into the favor of the Crown and won control by fiat of what he could never have earned through seamanship? They knew nothing of the boy Cristoforo’s years haunting the docks of Genova. They knew nothing of his voyages, nothing of his studies, nothing of his plans and dreams. Above all, they had no idea that God had spoken to him on a beach in Portugal, not that many miles to the west of them. They had no idea that this voyage was already a miracle which could never have taken place were it not that it had God’s favor and therefore could not fail.
All was ready. The frenetic activity had settled to languor, the languor to waiting, as eyes that had before watched the work now turned to look at Colón.
Watch me, thought Cristoforo. When I raise my hand, I change the world. With all their labors, not one of these other men can do that.
He closed his fist. He lifted it high above his head. The people cheered as the men cast off and and the caravels slipped away from land.
Three hollow grey hemispheres formed a triangle, like three serving bowls laid out for a feast. Each was filled with equipment for the different missions that Diko, Hunahpu, and Kemal would carry out. Each had a portion of the library that Manjam and his secret committee had collected and preserved. If any one of them reached the past and changed it so that the future was obliterated, then that one portion of the library would contain enough information that someday the people of the new future would be able to learn of the future that had died for them. Would be able to build on their science, wonder at their stories, profit from their technologies, learn from their sorrows. It is a sad sort of feast these bowls contained, thought Tagiri. But it is the way of the world. Always something must die so that another organism can live. And now a community, a world of communities must turn their dying into a banquet of possibilities for another.
Diko and Hunahpu stood beside each other as they listened to the final explanation from Sá Ferreira; Kemal was by himself, listening attentively enough but obviously not a part of what was going on. He was already gone, like a dik-dik in the jaws of a cheetah, past fear, past caring. The Christian martyrs must have looked like this, thought Tagiri, as they walked into the lion’s den. It was not the look of sullen despair that Tagiri had seen on the faces of slaves being chained belowdecks in the ships of the Portuguese. Death is death, someone had said once to Tagiri, but she had not believed it then and did not believe it now. Kemal knows he is walking toward death, but it will mean something, it will achieve something, it is his apotheosis, it gives his life meaning. Such a death is to be not shunned but embraced. There is an element of pride in it, yes, but it is an honorable pride, not a vain one, that glories in sacrifice that will achieve a good end.
It is how we all should feel, for we all are being killed this day, by these machines. Kemal feels in his heart that he will die first, but it is not so. Of all the people in the world on this day, in this hour, he will be one of only three who do not die when the switch is thrown and the cargo and passengers of these hollow hemispheres hurtle back in time. Only two people alive today have a future longer than Kemal’s.
And yet it was not wrong of him to relish his death. He would die surrounded by hate and rage, killed by those who did not understand what he was doing, but their hate would be a kind of honor, their rage a fitting response to his achievement.
Sá was nearly finished. “From the serious to the banal,” he said. “Keep all your body parts inside the sphere. Don’t stand up, don’t raise your hands until you can see that you have arrived.”
He pointed at the wires and cables dangling from the ceiling directly over the center of each hemisphere. “Those cables that hold up the field generators will be severed by the successful generation of the field. Thus your separation from the flow of time will have almost no duration. The field will exist, and in the moment it comes to exist, the generator will lose all power and the field will cease to exist. You’ll be aware of none of that, of course. The only thing you will know is that the generator will suddenly drop. Since no part of your body will be under the generator—I’m hoping you will not risk breaking an ankle by testing whether I’m right or not . . .”
Diko laughed nervously. Hunahpu and Kemal were impassive.
“You will be in no danger from the fall of the generator. However, it will whip the cables down with it. They are heavy, but fortunately the fall is short and there won’t be that much force in them. Still, you must be aware of the possibility of being struck with some violence by the cable. So even though you may wish to strike some gallant pose, I must beg you to assume a covered, protected position so that you do not jeopardize the success of your mission by exposing yourself to the risk of personal injury.”
“Yes, yes,” said Kemal. “We will curl up like infants in the uterus.”
“Then we’re done here. Time to go.”
There was only a moment’s hesitation. And then the last good-byes began. Almost in silence, Hunahpu was embraced by his brothers, and Hassan and Tagiri, and their son Acho, held and kissed Diko for the last time. Kemal stood alone until Tagiri came also to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, and Hassan gripped his shoulders and murmured something to him, words from the Quran, and then kissed him on the lips.
Kemal climbed alone into his hemisphere. Hunahpu walked with Diko to hers, and just before she climbed the ladder he embraced her and kissed her gently. Tagiri did not hear the words that passed between them, but she knew—they all knew, but did not speak of it—that Hunahpu and Diko had also made a personal sacrifice, perhaps not as complete as that of Kemal, but one with its own kind of pain, its own sweet bitterness. It was possible that Kemal and Diko might see each other again, for they were both going to the island of Hispaniola—no, the island of Haiti, for it was the native name for it that would survive now. But Hunahpu was going to the swamps of Chiapas in Mexico, and it was quite likely that either he or Diko would die during the long years before their paths could cross.
And that was assuming that all three hemispheres would arrive. The problem of simultaneity had never been overcome. Even though the wiring had been carefully measured so that it should take exactly as long for the signal to go from the switch to
the three computers and from the computers to the three field generators, they knew that no amount of careful measurement could possibly make the signals arrive with true simultaneity. There would be some tiny but real difference in time. One of the signals would arrive first. One of the fields would exist, even if it was for just one nanosecond, before the others came into existence. And it was possible that because of the changes caused by the first field, the other fields would never come into being at all. The future in which they existed would have been obliterated.
Thus it was determined that each of the three must act as if the other two had already failed. Each must carry out the mission with as much care as if everything depended on him or her alone, for it very well might be true.
But they hoped that all three time machines would work, that all three travelers would reach their separate destinations. Diko would arrive in Haiti in 1488, Kemal in 1492; Hunahpu would reach Chiapas in 1475. “There is a certain sloppiness in nature,” Manjam had told him. “True precision is never achieved, is never even possible, and so everything that happens depends on a certain amount of probability, has a little leeway, a bit of room to compensate for lapses and mistakes. Genetic molecules are filled with redundancy and can cope with a certain amount of loss or damage or extra insertions. Electrons moving through their quantum shells have a certain range of unpredictability about their exact location, for all that matters is that they remain at the same distance from the nucleus. Planets wobble in their orbits and yet persist for billions of years without falling into their motherstars. So there should be room for microseconds or milliseconds or centiseconds or even deciseconds of difference between the beginnings of the three fields. But we have no way of experimenting to see just what the tolerances are. We may have far exceeded them. We may have missed by a fraction of a nanosecond. We may have been so far from success as to have made this whole venture wasted time. Who can know these things?”
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