Meridian - A Novel In Time (The Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  She listened, trying to place the sound into some familiar frame of reference. There was a long distended wash of noise, punctuated by the rhythmic panting of some metallic engine. Her first thought was that the turbines had fallen out of sync, but the more she listened the more she came to feel that she was hearing the sound of a passing train! A high pitched whistle added weight to the impression, and then the sound faded away, a desolate echo, empty and forlorn. Something brayed at its heels, like a pack of dogs chasing in its wake. The sound of the turbines devoured the echo and it was gone.

  Her eyes were drawn at once to the copy of the Seven Pillars. It would take about three minutes for the retraction scheme to play itself out. She had to know.

  Anxiety pulsed at her temples again as she reached for the book to open it. The place was clearly marked. All she had to do was read the passage now to see what had happened. She began turning the pages, her eyes mirroring the terrible sense of dread she felt. A part of her did not want to know what fate was ordained in those lines, but she pressed on, the dry pages rattling as she made her way to the passage Nordhausen had marked. Her finger traced down the page with a tremulous quiver, and she began to read.

  27

  Minifir, 10 November, 1917 – 1:10 PM

  The train was making good time, but as they approached the higher ground leading up to a pair of low hills, the gentle upward grade began to slow the engine down. It was time for another infusion of coal. They had been four hours since their last stop, not even pausing to offload cargo at Zerga, the largest town along this stretch of the rail line. There was no time. The train had to get up to Mafrak north of these hills as soon as possible. Better yet would be Deraa, for the rail spurs there were plentiful, and this was a long train.

  The Colonel in charge of the train looked at his watch. It was just after 1:00 PM and they were moving again after a very brief coaling stop. The engineer seemed intent on making the last bend and heading up past the hills of Minifir before he stopped again. This was a dangerous place, for the Arabs often came here to watch the movement of the trains from the ruins above. The Turkish rail patrols were not so enthusiastic in the rain, and this stretch of the line was not well guarded. It was a good place for an ambush.

  He squinted at a streak of bright sunlight as it pierced the dark clouds that still hunched low over the landscape. The sky was beautifully backlit with the mid-day sun, but it only managed to finger its way through the clouds in places, with long amber streaks of gold. The head of the train reached the middle point of the twin hills where a shallow runoff channel made its way down from the cleavage. There was a low rail support arch there that might make a tempting target. The Colonel had read reports about an attack here earlier in the year, and the Arabs, like a bad habit, always continued to bother.

  The Colonel leaned out of his coach window, the wind ruffling the careful smear of his oiled hair a bit. He looked ahead to see the engine pass the bridge without mishap, and then something caught his eye a little ways up the culvert of the channel. It was an Arab! His eyes narrowed with suspicion when he saw the man, and he instinctively scanned the hills above for any sign of movement. The train gave a high pitched whistle, adding a note of urgency to the moment. He could see that the soldiers in the open cars at the head of the train were taking notice of the solitary figure as well. Some of the officers were leaning out of their cars with spy glasses to get a better look at the man. The Colonel did not have his handy, but his suspicions were sharpening his senses with each passing moment.

  The man was just sitting there. He seemed no more than a solitary Bedu shepherd come down to watch the train pass by. To the Colonel’s surprise, the man began to wave at the soldiers as the cars rolled by, one by one. He was sitting by a low desert scrub, as lonesome and solitary as this single man, its leafless branches waving in the rising wind, even as the Arab waved at the train in greeting. There was almost something impudent in the man’s movements—a haughty sense of ridicule. The Colonel gave much thought to the notion that this could be the escaped prisoner, returned to mock his would be captors one last time. Would the man be such a fool?

  Anger burned at the back of his neck, and he pushed himself back into the coach, striding over to pull on the bell. Three harsh clangs were the signal to stop the train. He would have a look and see if this man would wave and smirk at him in the end. When he returned to the window, however, the Arab was gone. The Colonel’s suspicions redoubled, feeding coal to his rising anger.

  By the time the long train stopped it had taken his trailing coach and brake car far beyond the point where the Arab had been sitting. The Colonel tramped to his porch and fumed at the brakeman in the last car, shaking his fist at the man. He jumped from the porch, shouting for a sergeant and another officer to join him. A glance at his watch told him that the slow progress of the last hour was putting him behind schedule again. No matter. He would have a careful look at the rail lines at least, and see if there were any telltale signs of hidden wire or explosives.

  Why would the man just sit there if he meant to blow up a mine? The question ground on his mind even as his boots crunched the rocky soil of the rail bed. Where could he have gone? He scanned the hills, shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness of the luminous clouds, but saw no sign of movement. A careful search of the rail bed revealed no trace of mischief. Curse the man! His commander, Jemal Pasha was on the next train, probably hurtling south to Deraa by now. This delay was more time than he could afford. He had to clear the line. He had to reach Deraa, or Mafrak at the very least, before his Corps Commander arrived. He could at least report that he had stopped to scout this place, and found nothing of interest or concern here but a lone Arab shepherd. As for the American? He would keep that matter to himself. Perhaps he could assuage the Bey’s curiosity when he reached Deraa by finding him someone soft and willing. With a last reluctant kick of his boot on the sandy soil, he waved at his sergeants and started back to the train.

  No one could have been more surprised than Lawrence when he pushed down on the plunger of the exploder to detonate the train. Nothing happened! He pulled it back and plunged down again and again, but the exploder would not ignite his mine. Something must have gone wrong with the wires, he thought, or the gear inside his rusty old box. Now he was fifty meters from the train with eight open cars crammed full of curious Turkish soldiers! He was completely exposed, and there was no point in trying to make a run for it. The Turks would just leap from their train and hunt him down like a rabbit. He had sixty men in the hills above, but this train was laden with nearly two hundred rifles, and a host of overly curious officers who were peering from the windows of the trailing coaches, peeping at him through spy glasses. The mine would have evened the odds, but it did not go off.

  He considered what to do, realizing that his only option was to sit exactly where he was and let providence decide. Leave it to fortune and fate, or as the Arabs might say, ‘let it rest in the bosom of Allah.’ He passed a few tense moments, smiling inwardly at the ridiculous quirk that had set him here in plain sight of his enemies, a wholesome piece of fruit, ripe for the plucking. His smile soon became a smirk, then a wave as he warmed to the moment, a feeling of invulnerability cloaking him as the train rolled by.

  When it had finally moved a good distance off, he carefully buried his wires. The last cars slid around a bend in the culvert, so he scooped up the exploder, and stole off like a shadow into the hills. This entire mission had been plagued by bad luck! First a loose gun strap at the Yarmuk bridge set them fleeing wildly across the desert with mad dogs, Turks and distressed peasants on their heels. They cut a few telegraph wires but needed more than that to assuage their bruised sense of pride and honor. So they decided to blow up a train, and sat for twelve long hours beneath the sodden twin humps of Minifir. They missed the first one in the thick morning mist but were well prepared to meet the mid-day train from Amman. Now this… The Arabs would soon begin to say that there was an evil eye among them,
and that the mission was doomed to failure.

  There was nothing to be done, he thought. He would pull them together and they would try again. He looked at the rusty exploder as he made his way to a hiding spot a safe distance from the rail line, wondering what had gone wrong. The clanging of a bell gave him pause. He passed a moment of concern when the train glided to a halt about 500 meters up the line. It was an old, wheezing engine and perhaps they needed more coal to get up a good head of steam. He watched while a small patrol of officers made their way up the rail line to inspect the area. If they discovered his wires he would have to give the signal to flee to the animals and run shamefully back into the desert. Thankfully, they found nothing and the train was soon underway again.

  In war, he thought, recalling the words of Caesar, ‘actions of great importance are often the result of trivial causes.’ They would simply have to wait it out and hope for better luck when the next train came down from Damascus. One way or another, he knew, he would strike his blow and bring his Arab brothers home with all the loot their greedy hands could carry.

  It was only a matter of time.

  MERIDIAN

  Part X

  Outcomes & Consequences

  “Destiny has two ways of crushing us—

  By refusing our wishes and by fulfilling them.”

  Henri Amiel: Journal

  “In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—

  there are consequences.”

  Robert G. Ingersoll: Some Reasons Why

  28

  Lawrence Berkeley Labs: 4:05 AM

  Kelly was working feverishly at the Chamber Mix Controls. The particle infusion looked good, but he was worried that the element levels would not give him enough density to trigger the final retraction. He nudged the levels again, adding weight to the mix until he satisfied himself that there was little more he could do. A glance at the clock set his heart racing. He had to get full power now, or they would lose Paul forever. He raced to the main console thumbing the intercom to shout through the microphone. “Clear that Arch corridor, Maeve! I need to ramp this baby up again.” There was a burst of interference and he passed a breathless moment, looking at Jen as they both listened for a response. Then Maeve’s voice returned, faint but audible.

  “It’s Nordhausen, and we’re clear, Kelly. Go get Paul!”

  “Roger that.” Kelly waved at Jen with a winding motion of his wrist, and she toggled a switch on the board to open the floodgates of energy required for a time shift. The building seemed to shudder in response, and Kelly only hoped the turbines would hold out another five minutes.

  “Ninety-five,” Jen called out the readings. “One hundred!”

  “I’m on it!” Kelly moved quickly, his hands streaking over the controls to enable the retraction scheme. “Those focal routines still look good,” he said aloud. “I think we have a pattern lock.”

  Jen was a bit flustered in the excitement of the moment, but she fell back on familiar ground and began reading the shift monitor for temporal integrity. “Green at 1.00,” she said, excitement rising in her voice. “Zero variance.”

  “Come on in, Paul. Come on now, buddy.” Kelly watched the neon glow of the progress bar until it traversed his screen to finality. “I think we’ve done it!” He clapped his hands with jubilation.

  Even as he turned to flash a broad grin at Jen, a sharp spat of energy leapt from the main console and a shower of sparks cascaded from the winking rows of display lights. Kelly made a fast cutting motion across his neck. “Cut the power!” He yelled over the fuming explosion but was cut off from Jen’s station by a sheet of white flame.

  “Shit! God damn electrical fire!” He whirled around, looking for an extinguisher.

  Jen managed to deactivate the main power switch, and the explosive fury of the fire dissipated in a shower of sizzling sparks. Kelly was across the room, his elbow smashing the glass door of the extinguisher closet. He dragged out the dry chemical extinguisher and pulled at the safety tab as he ran back to the console. Jen was leaning back from the blazing panel and shielding her eyes from the white tongues of flame. Kelly waved her away, and the hollow whoosh of the extinguisher spat its chalky vapor on the blaze, enveloping it in a billowing fog. After three intense bursts from the extinguisher, the fire hissed out and thin curls of dark smoke spiraled up from the display board.

  “Jen, get down and tell Tom to roll everything back through standby. He can take it down to zero in ten minutes. There’s nothing else we can do with the console in this shape. I only hope we managed to pull this off.”

  A voice crackled from the intercom speaker below. “You’ve landed your last fish, Kelly.”

  “Thank God.” Kelly suddenly felt faint. The tension of the last several hours all seemed to unwind and his arms and legs felt like jelly. “I better sit down for a minute.” He looked for a chair, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Ramer.” Jen gave him a warm smile, glad that the project had been successful. Then she turned to run to the staircase. “I’ll tell Tom to shut everything down.” She slipped through the door and was gone.

  Kelly slumped in a chair, breathing hard. He decided to lower his head to his knees to get some blood flowing. How could he be so light headed with his heart pounding like this? The adrenaline of the retraction and the fire emergency was still driving his pulse in a feverish rhythm. He gained a little clarity of thought and looked around the room.

  We did it, he thought. We pulled the whole thing off! He glanced at the clock and saw that they still had another three minutes before the first tsunami waves were due to hit the coast off Cape Hatteras—if there was still any emergency at all. Where was that radio Nordhausen had with him? He looked around, hoping to see the shortwave sitting comfortably on a nearby console, but it was nowhere to be found. Then he remembered what Paul had told him about the book. If they altered the time line the book should change as well. All he had to do was read the passage Nordhausen had marked for him. How did it go? The echo of Paul’s words returned to him. He was supposed to read up on the second train. If it gets through without incident, everything would be fine. Everything fine…

  He stood up, on unsteady legs, and shuffled to the desk where they had hidden the book away. The drawer was slightly ajar, but he gave it no heed. He reached down, missing the drawer handle at first and groping to take hold and pull it open. There was nothing there but a few file folders. Did he have the right drawer? A check of the others came up empty. The book was gone.

  Kelly stood there, a bemused expression on his face. It was gone. Something had happened, he thought. Something knocked old Lawrence right out of the God damned time line! He never wrote his book! It was the only possible explanation, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly dizzy.

  “Crap…” he said aloud in a low voice. His mind played out a thousand possibilities, imagination painting the images in his head in a flashing rush. They did something to contaminate the time line, he thought. Lawrence may have been exposed or even killed. Maeve tried to warn us about this. You don’t fool with a Prime Mover! Something happened to prevent him from writing his book.

  A voice intruded on the stillness of the room “You there Kelly?” It was Maeve speaking over the intercom again.

  He forced himself to move, leaning in the direction he wanted to go and hoping his feet would stay under him. The microphone on the desk…The microphone…

  “You there, Kelly? Answer me!” Maeve’s voice had a frantic edge to it.

  He reached out for the mike, getting one hand on it as he spoke. “Book’s gone…” His voice sounded so strange to him, thin and distant.

  “What? Kelly? Thank god! You’re OK.” The sound of someone else speaking in the background came to him and he recognized the voice of his long time friend. “Hey there, mister! Spent a lovely couple of hours in the park. Nice going, Kelly. I knew you could do it.”

  The voices sounded far away, like distant memories. It
was Paul! He was alive and well. Kelly smiled, lowering himself slowly to a chair by the microphone. “The book…” he tried to speak but his voice was unwilling.

  “I’ve got it here!” Maeve seemed elated as she spoke, yet her words were an echo in Kelly’s mind now, quavering through his thoughts with an almost haunting resonance.

  What did she say? She had the book? She must have taken it when she went down to help Nordhausen! Then everything was all right after all! He sighed to himself, feeling warm and satisfied. Lawrence was unharmed, or at least he lived long enough to write his Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Everything was fine now. Paul and Robert were safe and sound. It was wonderful… Wonderful…

  He was thinking of poetry now. The words just came to him at times like this, and he found himself reaching into his shirt pocket for the little notebook and pen he always kept there. He would write things down when the words came. It was the only way to keep them from evaporating into the ether of his mind. There was a thought wrapped up with the words, as if some inner voice was speaking a great truth to him, knowing something he only now began to guess at, and gently calling him to listen.

  He heard the voice speaking the words and at last he knew why he was dizzy, and why Maeve had the book, and why Paul was happily safe with Robert in the chamber of the Arch. It had all worked out fine. Only now he would face the truth that had been whispering from some dark corner of his soul ever since the first knock of the visitor on Nordhausen’s study door.

  He was very tired, drained of all energy, but he managed to drag his pen over the notebook, wanting to write down the words in his head. They were not his words this time, but they spoke with the resonance of his innermost soul. He tried to scrawl them on the narrow page, but his hand moved with a languid slowness, and he could not write. So he just sat quietly and listened to the words in his mind.