Meridian - A Novel In Time (The Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  “From that full meridian of my glory

  I haste now to my setting: I shall fall

  Like a bright exhalation in the evening

  And no man see me more…”

  It was the great bard himself, whispering in his ear. Shakespeare had something for everyone. He passed a fleeting moment, thinking how it would have been so wonderful to go back to the Globe as they first planned. Just to see the play, he thought; just to sit there quietly and watch the old master at the flood tide of his life. Then everything had changed when the news came over his car radio. Everything had changed.

  Yes, he thought. They came back for me, but I wasn’t supposed to make it this far. I wasn’t supposed to be here… His mind grew quiet, but his hand still struggled to move, managing just one word on the page that captured the essence of Shakespeare’s verse. Would it stay there when I go, or vanish like the memory of my life? Would any of it stay put for very long?

  He didn’t know.

  29

  Lawrence Berkeley Labs: Arch Safety Lock 4:12 AM

  “He’s OK!” Maeve was beaming as she greeted Paul with the warmth they deserved. “Kelly is fine!”

  “Good man,” said Paul. He looked at Nordhausen where he was just coming around again after passing out on the floor. “What happened to Robert?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. He was just disoriented from the retraction. Look, he’s coming to now.”

  “I’ll vouch for that. If you open your eyes it’s, fabulous, but it will make you sick to your stomach when your finish the shift. I’m a bit light-headed myself, but I think I’ll be fine.”

  Maeve was helping Nordhausen up onto one elbow. “Look at the two of you! You look like a pair of pups who’ve been out playing in the mud!”

  “Well, it was raining. You try sneaking around in the Jordanian desert in the rain and mud for twelve hours and see what your laundry bill looks like.”

  “Twelve hours?”

  “At least that long,” Paul explained. “After we got to our proper coordinates, that is.”

  “Kelly botched the numbers.” Nordhausen was getting his wits about him and returned to the same tired complaint he had been making all along. “He sent us half way to eternity!”

  “That gave us quite a scare,” said Maeve. “He was rushing to key the final numbers and accidentally put something in as an exponent. You shifted by powers of ten.”

  “Good lord!” Nordhausen’s eyes were focused now, and registering the proper touch of outrage. “That would account for the Ammonite fossil we found. We were probably way back in the—”

  “In the late Cretaceous.” Maeve finished for him. “We got the readings and I nearly wet my pants. Kelly did something during the tachyon infusion, however. He sent a loop command through the system and got a double reading on your pattern signatures. Then he used one copy to move you back on target. The last one brought you both home.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Paul. Then he pointed an accusing finger at Nordhausen. “Where the hell were you?”

  “What? Well I was going to ask you the same thing. Weren’t you the one warning me about not stepping on the plants and such. Then you go wandering off and the next thing I know I’m face down in a pile of wet sand. What happened to you?”

  “I came back to the fire and found you gone. Before I had time to get mad about it I must have shifted forward. I’m not sure where I ended up at first. The shift surprised me and I saw too much.”

  “Did you open your eyes this time?” The professor had an excited look on his face.

  “Too long,” said Paul. “It made me sick and dizzy. I was stumbling along in the desert and came upon the rail line. Then the Turks came up and—”

  “The Turks!” Maeve gave him a wide-eyed look. “I’ll bet that was fun.”

  “No shit!” Paul could still fee the hard clutch of the Colonel’s fingers on his throat. He spent a few moments recounting his ordeal in the officer’s coach, and his chance escape because of the loose buckle on the leather strap. “See what I mean, Robert? It was just a loose thread or two that ended up setting me free. Otherwise I might have been strung up for the Colonel’s pleasure the whole damn time. I can only imagine the effect on the man if I was still tied up when the retraction shift started.”

  “Well, it all worked out because of one of your little push pins,” said the professor. Paul frowned at him for getting the terminology wrong again, but said nothing. “So tell me,” Nordhausen leaned forward, “how did you manage to sabotage the wires?”

  “What?” Paul gave him a surprised look. “I was hoping you managed to do that. I never got near them.”

  “What are you saying?” Nordhausen sat up straight. “I was close, you know. Very close. I even saw Lawrence! It was amazing. He came up from the rail line and set his exploder right by the little bush he talks about in Seven Pillars. I could barely contain myself. He seemed to have this aura around him—at least I thought I saw an odd corona about his form.”

  “Little bush?” The professor never filled Paul in on all the details he crammed into his head before the mission started.

  “Yes, there was a bush where he was planning to hide the ends of the wire so he could get to them easily when the train came.” He told the story of his encounter with the two Arabs in the desert, and how he stole away in the early dawn to see what he could do on his own. “I gave them the slip,” he beamed, “and I swear, I was within thirty yards of that bush when everything started to get fuzzy on me. The final retraction must have pulled me out, but I never touched the exploder, or the wire for that matter. I was hoping you would finish the job, Paul.”

  “I wish I could take credit, but I never got anywhere near the wires either.” They both looked at Maeve, hoping she would produce the answer for them.

  “Well,” she said, “this confirms my argument about wandering around in history, doesn’t it. Who knows what you actually did to change things, but you did something. It could have been anything at all. We may never know in the end.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Nordhausen. I’ve studied history for decades and I’ve often remarked how much of it just seems to happen on its own. Oh yes, the kings and princes and generals and emperors thought they had it all firmly in hand. In the end, however, they were doing little more than blundering about, just as we were. In fact, Lawrence expressed the same feeling about the writing of his book. How did he say it? ‘Things happen, and we do our best to keep in the saddle.’ Those were the words of one of your Prime Movers, Paul.”

  “Doesn’t sound very comforting, does it?” Paul scratched the back of his head. “The notion that we change things unknowingly, that history turns on the slightest whim, is unnerving. Now do you know why I was so concerned about contamination?”

  “Yes, but did it change?” Nordhausen was pointing at the book lying on the floor of the safety lock chamber. “Did you read it, Maeve?”

  “Yes. I was frightened out of my wits, but I found the passage and read it just before Paul came through. Our assumption is correct. We all remember clearly that the second train was the one Lawrence blew up, right?”

  “That’s how I remember the narrative,” said Nordhausen, and Paul gave him a nod of agreement.

  “Right then,” Maeve continued. “As it reads now, the second train rolls on by without incident. Well, not entirely without incident. Lawrence was sitting with his exploder and the damn thing failed to ignite the charges.” She recounted the passage she had read, relating how Lawrence had been exposed on the open ground, waving at the Turks on the train with a silly grin on his face. “Look here,” she said with some delight. “He even penned an illustration into this version of the narrative!”

  She flipped open the book and they were amazed to see that Lawrence had drawn a little cartoon to illustrate his plight. “And it goes on to show that they waited for the third train, just as we hoped. Lawrence managed to fix the exploder box—apparently that was the Pushpoint, P
aul. He recounts working on the interior of the box to set it right, and when the third train showed up their mine went off without a hitch. But we still came very close to ‘mucking things up,’ as you would say professor. Do you know who was on the third train?”

  Paul and Robert waited her out, speechless. “Jemal Pasha, the Commander of the whole Turkish Corps in that region. He was traveling with his Headquarters Company to try and get closer to the disintegrating front in that area.”

  “Yes,” said Paul. “The Colonel and I had a little chat about it. He spoke English fairly well. Allenby had just pushed the Turks out of Beersheba.”

  “Well, we could have gotten the man killed!” Maeve gave him a peeved look. “But lucky for the both of you, he survived the attack. Lawrence and his men grabbed some booty and fled into the desert. I don’t know what you did, exactly, but it altered the mechanism of the exploder box and changed this narrative dramatically. I can only hope it changed the rest of the continuum as well…” Her voice trailed off a bit as she said that, and a squall of concern clouded her features.

  “Where’s Kelly,” said Nordhausen? “He should be down here celebrating with us!”

  “He’s late again,” Paul chimed, still rummaging through his memory of the trip to try and figure out what he could have done to cause the exploder box to fail.

  “Get him on the intercom.” Nordhausen was pointing at the call box on the far wall.

  “You mean you haven’t checked the radio yet, Maeve?”

  “Checked the radio? Well, as you can see, I’ve been a little preoccupied these last few minutes.”

  “Look at the time,” said Nordhausen. “It’s 4:20 AM. You said the first waves were scheduled to hit the coast at 4:11. Come on! I left my radio in the changing room upstairs. Let’s get up there and see what else has changed.”

  Paul helped the professor to his feet, and they opened the outer door of the safety lock, making their way back to the elevator for the long ride up to the surface. Paul tried the intercom on the way up, but no one answered. “I wonder where Kelly went,” he said. The low moaning sound of the descending turbines added a somber note to the scene. It sounded like a pack of howling dogs, lost and forlorn in the distance.

  Maeve stood in sullen silence. Each mention of Kelly’s name seemed like a lash upon her and, as the seconds passed, the cruel whip of her understanding began to score her with a growing pain. She already feared what the others had not even begun to guess at, though the look on Paul’s face began to betray a small hint of anxiety as the elevator doors swished open at the top. He’s thinking about it now, she thought. God, don’t let it be so.

  They reached the last great door and activated the controls to swing it back on the gleaming metal hinges. It glided open and they stepped through the portal to the control room, eyes adjusting to the darkness. A purple haze drifted over the consoles, and the emergency lighting projected long radiant cones through the vapors. Paul rushed in, almost tripping on a swivel chair that was square in the center of the room. The circular control consoles arched around him, still dimly lit by battery power. He sniffed the air, smelling something wrong.

  “What happened, here,” he began? “Smells like they had a fire. Where’s Kelly?”

  “Looks like they put it out there at the main console.” Nordhausen pointed at the streaks of dark char on the silver plating of the console panels. There was obvious evidence of a fire, and the whole area was dusted with the white powder of a chemical extinguisher that was lying on the floor. “Kelly?” he called out, but no one answered. “Well, perhaps he’s gone down to see Tom about shutting this contraption off. Can you hear the turbines winding down? We must have tripped circuit breakers all over the Bay Area with all the power this thing requires.”

  “Yes,” said Paul, “that must be it.” He gave Maeve a quick glance and was disturbed to see a single teardrop well at the corner of her eye and trace a solitary path along her cheek. Was it the smoke in the room irritating her eyes? He started to say something but held his thoughts for a moment.

  “I’ll get the radio.” Nordhausen diverted his attention to getting some news on the Palma Event. He rushed off towards the changing room, nearly tripping on the sodden robes of his costume as he went.

  Paul was looking around the room, and he spied a chair off by the communications console. He walked over, eyes searching the area for any sign or clue. He did not know exactly what he was looking for, but his senses were keenly alert just the same. When he reached the chair he encountered a palpable cold spot on the misty air and shuddered.

  I’m just suffering from the cold and the rain in the desert, he tried to tell himself, even though he knew better. He extended an arm, feeling forward to the chair like a blind man groping the darkness. He felt a frosty tingle, the cold handshake of Time, and he knew why Maeve was crying. Something in him resisted the thoughts that welled in his mind. He did not want them to be so. Then his eye spied a crumpled notebook on the console that seemed oddly out of place.

  Maeve was padding softly to the scene behind him. She wrapped her arms close about her when she encountered the icy chill near the chair. Then she stopped, as if frozen with emotion, unwilling to take one single step further and have her senses confirm the terrible sadness that seemed to settle on her now. Paul looked at her with knowing eyes.

  He reached for the notebook and strained to see the single word that was written there. Tears welled in his eyes as he read it. Then he slowly extended the note to Maeve. She stepped back, one arm out in front of her as if she thought to ward off the inevitable truth by refusing to look. Then she softened, her hand opening with gentle affirmation, and taking the notebook from Paul. She held it for a moment, then raised it to her breast, a sacred object that branded her with memories and hopes that she could neither embrace nor shun. She looked at the notepad and recognized the errant scrawl of Kelly’s handwriting.

  There was only one word: ‘Goodbye.’

  Nordhausen came running up, breathless with elation. “We did it,” he shouted. “I’ve tuned in the BBC and there’s not a hint or a whisper of anything wrong! Oh, there’s some news about a high water warning because of a minor earthquake on the Canary Islands. Isn’t that odd? It was augmented by a storm surge from an early hurricane, but no real threat seems to be developing. The season normally begins this weekend, but hurricane Auda is running up a six foot storm surge off the Carolinas. Word is Bermuda got hit pretty hard, but nothing all that threatening to the coast. They posted a warning, but no mandatory evacuation order.”

  “Yes, we know,” said Maeve softly. She was still staring at the notepad.

  “What do you mean?” Nordhausen looked at them, surprised to see the wet, sad eyes and long faces. “What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you understand? We were successful! Old Ra’id Husan al Din and his Holy Fighters never blew up their volcano. We saved millions of lives tonight and you’re standing there like it was a funeral or something. Why, what would our visitor from the future think to see you like this?”

  Paul gave him a vacant look, taking a long slow breath before he spoke. “He never came, Robert.”

  “What’s that? Who never came? Now where is Kelly—has he come up to hear the good news yet?”

  Paul was not quite sure how to explain things. He looked at Maeve, and saw that she was giving him the same searching eyes, hoping he might understand something she had overlooked, something that would work just one more magical change on the continuum and bring Kelly back to them.

  Paul cleared his voice and tried to speak. Emotion closed its fingers on his throat, like the cold, strong fingers of the Turkish Colonel. “Mr. Graves…the visitor. I don’t think he ever came last night.”

  “What?” Nordhausen gave him an exasperated look. “Well of course he came. How else do you suppose we pulled this thing off?” A light of realization flashed in his eyes. “There you go with this time theory business again. What are you saying? I remember the man clearly. D
on’t you remember him as well?” He looked at Maeve for support, noticing her tears for the first time. “What in God’s name is going on here?”

  “It’s difficult…” Paul gathered his thoughts. “Do you still remember the meeting, Robert? Do you still recall our discussion about Shakespeare and all that business about the Bermuda Papers?”

  “Of course I do. I may be a bit shaken up by this little excursion through the halls of infinity, but I’m not daft. What are you asking?”

  “We can remember it all because we were protected in a Deep Nexus.” Nordhausen frowned at him and he tried to explain. “Yes, I remember the visitor as well. I’m sure Maeve will say the same. He said we were in a Deep Nexus, and that makes us all Free Radicals. Don’t you see? They created the Nexus when they came back here. It started when the visitor first stepped in front of Kelly’s car to delay him on the way to the meeting. The continuum was at risk from that very instant, and a Deep Nexus formed.”

  “What the hell is this nonsense all about?” Nordhausen was in no mood for another long treatise on Time theory. He was tired and awfully hungry. He wanted food and coffee and a warm bed. They could sort it all through in twelve hours. A sinking feeling settled over him.

  “A Deep Nexus is a point of maximum risk on any Time Meridian,” Paul went on, piecing things together in his mind as he spoke. Maeve listened silently, nodding inwardly as he retraced the pathways where her own fear had walked with her earlier. “Once a Nexus forms, it’s as if time is holding its breath. Any willful agent caught in the Nexus becomes a Free Radical, capable of making profound alterations in the eventual course of Time as it leaves that point. We were all caught up in this the moment Kelly was saved from the accident that was supposed to claim his life last night. A Deep Nexus is surrounded by Paradox, Robert. It’s Time’s way of isolating the Meridian and protecting it until it solidifies to some definite purpose, some new certainty. The Nexus held us all safe until we took some action to bring clarity to the situation. Who knows what we did while we were muddling about in the history, as you would say, but it was enough to reach a certain conclusion, and the Nexus began to dissipate. Once that happens, and the continuum is free to move forward again, Paradox will see to anything that doesn’t belong. It’s Time’s way of cleaning up after our mischief here. Do you understand?”