Touchstone (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

“That sort of speculation is useless. How can we know?”

  “Recon,” Paul asserted. “We can certify the breaching coordinates with a Spook Job—a quick ten second manifestation before we run the final operation. You appear, take a quick look, and we yank you back. If the coast is clear, as they say, we rev up for a full breach and insert the team.”

  “Won’t Kelly need to adjust his numbers?”

  “Nope. We’ll use the exact same data he has planned for the mission. All I have to do is get the Retraction Module to wink appropriately. Spinning out a singularity for ten seconds involves—” The look on Robert’s face made it plain that the professor did not want to know anything more about the physics.

  “I’ll tell Maeve,” Paul concluded. “In the meantime, I suppose you two can get ready to go down to the Arch.” There was a perceptible change in his voice, and the professor noticed it at once.

  Nordhausen gave him a long look. Paul met his gaze, a solemn expression on his face. “So I’ll miss this one,” he said.

  “You’ll miss the French Army,” said Robert. “The Battle of the Pyramids, French Squares, thousands of Mameluke Cavalry making their furious charges under the angry glow of the hot desert sun….”

  “That was all over in 1798,” said Paul. “In fact, Napoleon had already been checked at Acre and he was making his retreat back to Egypt in May of 1799. By June it was clear to him that the campaign in Egypt was a disaster. He was already planning his exit strategy.”

  “Yes,” said Nordhausen. “Secret instructions involving the frigates La Murion and La Carrière, to be ready to make sail at a moment’s notice.”

  “But there was the Turkish Army of Rhodes to worry about first,” Paul continued.

  “I see you’ve been reading the history.”

  Paul was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Robert, the Turkish anchored a fleet of sixty troop transports off Aboukir Bay on the night of July 11th. They were landing initial shore parties within hours. Just how far west on the road to Alexandria will you be?”

  “Not far.” The professor’s voice tried to persuade that all would be well, but he knew what Paul was driving at now.

  “The Turks had 15,000 troops ashore by the morning of the 12th of July. You’re going in just two days later.”

  “The French garrison held out at Aboukir Castle until the 18th and by all accounts the Turks just sat on the beaches.”

  “By all accounts…” Paul had a worried expression on his face. “Remember that 99% of everything that has ever happened is unknown to us. Why, 99% of your own lived experience is forgotten. Sure you have a recollection of the day you graduated college, but what did you do the previous afternoon? What did you have for breakfast the day before that? What book were you reading that week?”

  “I get your point,” Nordhausen stopped him.

  “Well, they could have pushed out patrols to reconnoiter the road. It could be very dangerous. The French effort to improve Ft. Julien at Rosetta was being hastened by urgent need. They were under threat of imminent attack, and Napoleon was not yet on the scene.”

  “Napoleon arrived on the 24th of July, Paul. The battle of Aboukir wasn’t fought until the 25th. That’s when the real danger will present itself.”

  “Yes but—”

  “We’ll be out of there by then. The retraction is set to give us a 48 hour window, just like my mission to London. We’ll be gone by the 16th. I’ll bet Kelly was glad to hear that I had all those calculations worked out for duration timing and all. He said he could use my numbers on the retraction scheme, and it saved him hours. Don’t worry, Paul. We’ll be fine.”

  “What if something goes wrong? Have you considered that? The first time we tried to open the continuum here the two of us ended up in Jurassic Park because Kelly made a typo! Lord, he was barely able to talk last night and—”

  “That won’t happen this time. Kelly is fine. Is that what this is about? You’re worried about Kelly, aren’t you?”

  “I’m worried about you all.” There was a moment of silence. “Look—if something does go wrong, you will need to stay with the stone. It arrives safely in Cairo, so they had to get it out of there somehow—most likely under escort. Stay with the stone, Robert, especially if you find it undamaged on the 15th. Get to Cairo.”

  “Paul!”

  “Here me out. You get to Cairo and lay low. Stay out of trouble. In particular, be wary of a man named Ahmed.”

  “Ahmed? Who’s he?”

  “Nobody knows. He was a mysterious figure that appeared in Cairo just before the Turks were set to land. He called himself the Mahdi, and he stirred up insurrection in the city.”

  "The Mahdi? Oh, the Muslims always call on the image of the Mahdi when they want to stir up trouble. Remember that Shi’ite Mullah in Iraq?”

  Paul thought for a moment. “Muqtada al Sadr? Yes. He raised his Mahdi Militias and raised hell for a while. Holed up in An Najaf, if I remember. That was quite a scene at the Shrine of Ali.”

  “Exactly. These Muslims are always calling up images from their religious mythology to add propane to their politics. This Ahmed was probably just the same. What would you say to the disaffected masses of Cairo if you wanted to ignite a revolution against their oppressive Western occupiers? You’d claim to be divinely guided; you’d claim to be the Mahdi they have been waiting for all these centuries to liberate them from the deceivers and infidels. The Arabs have been wrapping their politics in religion for millennia, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Be watchful just the same.”

  Nordhausen seized on Paul’s concern and drove home a point. “You think this man… you believe he may be an Assassin—an agent from the future?”

  “I have my suspicions.” Paul folded his arms, one hand stroking his chin. “There were several odd things in the history that began to stick out in my mind when I bored into it again. Did you know that there were at least two obvious assassination plots against Napoleon during this campaign? The first incident occurred just after he landed and seized Alexandria. Upon entering the city Napoleon and his party were making their way through a very narrow street and they were fired upon by a man and a woman with a musket. The second incident was an ambush by a Nablousian on the 24th of May, 1799, as Napoleon’s troops retreated from Syria. The shot barely missed Napoleon’s head; they caught the man; four Guides put their carbine muskets to his back and pulled the triggers simultaneously. Now get this… All four guns misfired and the man leapt into the Red Sea, swimming for all he was worth. The entire troop fired at him as he went, but not a single shot hit home. He escaped.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Nordhausen said, giving Paul a mollifying glance. “What are you suggesting?”

  “It’s odd, that’s all. It has a smell about it I don’t like. There were two attempts on the life of a Prime Mover and both failed. Either Napoleon’s Penumbra was already solidifying his position in the Meridian or… Well that second example was ludicrous! Very suspicious.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can see one of the carbines failing to fire at the assassin,” Paul concluded, “even two. But all four?”

  “Are you suggesting the carbines were…tampered with?”

  “I don’t know what I’m suggesting, but it seems that the assassin was living a charmed life too.”

  “Assassin—“ Nordhausen was quick to pick up on that, the connection obvious to Paul’s discovery at Massiaf.

  Paul nodded his agreement. “I’m just worried. This is shaping up to be a crucial Nexus on the Meridian. This business about the Rosetta Stone is becoming a magnet. Both sides could be at play in this, Robert. They could have agents there for the same reason we’re planning to go. In fact, they have decades to try and figure out what we’re up to here tonight. Suppose they do? If anything goes wrong, I’ve got these fallback extraction coordinates programmed, just in case. Be in Cairo, at the fountain square in the city center, on the night of August 1st. Be th
ere at sunset. Can you remember that?”

  “August 1st? But we’re only going to be there 48 hours, Paul.”

  “Assuming all goes well.”

  The professor stayed his effort to placate his friend and nodded his assent. “You really are worried.”

  “I’ll run a Spook Job at sunset on the 1st of August to see if you made it,” Paul continued, “and every night thereafter until we spot you there.”

  Robert had a wan expression on his face. “Can we survive that long—in the past, I mean.?”

  “What?”

  “Remember your mission to Massiaf? That Jabr fellow told you that the Walkers had but seven days. You started to fade, and it was just our good fortune that Kelly snatched you out before …” he seemed to stumble over his own thought now.

  “Before Paradox took me?” Paul pressed on.

  “Yes. Paradox. Well if we get stranded there how long will we be able to sustain ourselves in that Meridian?”

  “We really have no way of knowing. Remember, they were using the Well, and I was not prepared to go through. In fact, I went through prematurely. Here we have the Arch.” He was trying to shore up his friend’s resolve now, and bolster his courage. “We’ll have solid pattern signatures on the two of you. That means we can run Spook Jobs and use the quantum scan feature of the Arch to try and locate your patterns. Besides, I don’t see how Paradox would come into play here.”

  “You forget that I know all about the glyphs. It’s all in my head, Paul. How will time account for that when the Arch plops me down a day before the damn Rosetta Stone was even discovered!” A long silence settled between them until Paul spoke again.

  “No worries,” he began. “You’ll be protected in a Nexus for the duration of the mission—at the very least. After that, you’ll be back here and…” he stopped himself, needing truth now as he was sending his friend off to centuries past. He looked at Robert a long time before he spoke again.

  “You know what they say about discretion being the better part of valor. Just be careful, Robert. Hear me?”

  Part V

  Rosetta

  “On the sea the boldest steer but where their ports invite;

  But there are wanderers o’er Eternity

  Whose bark drives on and on,

  and anchor’d ne’er shall be.”

  —Byron: Childe Harold III.lxx.

  13

  An hour later Robert and Maeve were down in the Arch watching the dizzying spin of light and shadow. The sound of the generators was very loud, and Maeve could feel the thrumming vibration as the Arch moved up to full power. Her throat tightened and her heart quickened in response. She felt a dreadful sense of fear and anxiety as they edged up to the thick yellow line that marked the boundary between this reality and some other. She wanted to close her eyes and shut the moment out, pretend that she was simply at home in her herb garden and the world was not askew. But a furtive glance at Nordhausen bolstered her courage. He was gazing at the whirl of color, his eyes alight with a sense of awe and excitement.

  “Ready?” he asked, extending a hand.

  “As ready as I can be,” she said. The professor’s hand closed around hers. She held fast to her parasol with the other hand, the beaded purse now dangling from her shoulder by a thin spaghetti strap. Everything was going to be fine, she told herself. Kelly was on the job in the operations center, and Paul was with him there, both able technicians. It was just a trial run—a Spook Job, like the little jump she had made to the Arabic Library to scout out Paul… just a brief manifestation to make sure their breaching point was clear of contamination in the target area. It would only be a few seconds…

  Yet those last few seconds seemed to stretch out to infinity. What was she doing here? The tingling of the particle infusion sent a shiver to the very core of her being. How could this work? How could she stand here and have the root of her life plucked out and tossed into the wind? It was against her every instinct and desire. Why did she volunteer for this? It was madness!

  Somewhere, the thinly diffused voice of Kelly came to her, calling down from the control room on the PA system.

  “Ready for the big step? On my mark…Three, two, oops…Damn!”

  That last word jolted her. It was not so much the unexpected invective as it was the tone of alarm in Kelly’s voice. He had been all business as he counted down—almost nonchalant. Then something happened. She gaped at Nordhausen, hoping to find the answer with him, but he was taken up with the thrill of the hunt and she suddenly felt herself being pulled forward, nearly falling, across the yellow line.

  There was a vibrant rush of sound and light, and she instinctively closed her eyes. “Oh god…forgive me…” The words quavered out, drowned out by Nordhausen’s gleeful yelp as they passed into another reality.

  ~

  Up in the control room Kelly was aghast. He was half way up from his seat, looking around him in a controlled panic as though he needed something at once.

  “What happened?” Paul was at the particle infusion station, looking over his shoulder. The moment Kelly swore, his attention had been jerked away from the monitors and Paul turned to see Kelly’s face, clearly upset, as he pulled out his shirt tail and leaned forward over the console desk.

  “Damn, damn, damn!” He swore again, annoyed with himself.

  “What’s wrong?” Paul took one last look at the infusion console and started in Kelly’s direction.

  “I was counting down and reached for my coffee. Spilled the damn cup all over my keyboard!”

  Paul arrived at the workstation, breathless, and saw the mess. The mug was tilted on its side in a pool of dark coffee. Some of the liquid had run into the gaps between the keys, and Kelly was trying to swab up the excess liquid with his shirt tail.

  “Be careful,” Paul warned. “Watch the chronometer.”

  “I know—“ Kelly cut himself short as he glanced at the numerical readout on his console. “What? That’s not right…”

  He tapped a function key. “Oh, crap! My keyboard must have shorted out. Quick Paul, I need a replacement—fast!”

  The urgency in his voice struck Paul like a jolt of electricity. “Where are they?” he asked. “In the supply room?”

  “Hell, there’s no time for that. Just yank one out of one of the other consoles. No—not the history module. Try that one.” Kelly was pointing at an empty workstation and Paul rushed over, unplugging the keyboard in a quiet rush.

  By the time he had the board out and over to Kelly’s console he saw that his friend was just staring at the chronometer in disbelief. He immediately knew that this was much more than a simple accident. Something was wrong.

  ~

  The light gave way to a cold mist that seemed charged with a scintillating static. Maeve stumbled forward, pulled along by Nordhausen and yet clutching to his hand as though her life depended on it. They were over the line and into the Arch. The scene around them disintegrated into darkness as she pressed her eyes tightly closed. Then the cold… so deep and penetrating that she felt as though she could never be warm again. It was the cold of infinity, of annihilation, a graveyard chill that sent uncontrollable shivers through her. For one wild moment she could not feel the ground under her feet. It was as if she was suspended in the air, feather light, or falling in an uncontrolled rush to oblivion. Then her feet felt the substance of something firm again, and the pull of gravity returned. She fell onto her knees, deeply shaken, and the beaded purse that had been dangling from her shoulder, slipped to the floor. The odor of ozone came to her, along with a sickly sweet smell that she could not quite place.

  Nordhausen still had hold of her hand, his grip tight and firm. She opened her eyes to see that they were both enveloped in a gray fog, infused with a sheen of pale green light that was accented by faint sparks, like fireflies on a misty night. Tremors of cold still rippled through her body, but they grew still, and the warmth of life returned to her—a feeling of substance and presence, and weight. />
  “What?” The professor’s voice quavered out, and she looked to see the excitement in his eyes giving way to puzzlement. “Where are we?” He was looking around in amazement. “Now what has Kelly done this time?”

  Presence of mind had finally returned to her, and she remembered who she was, and what she was about. Maeve struggled up, aided by Nordhausen, and the two of them stood gaping at their surroundings. This was not the road to Alexandria. They were not in the quiet of the early dawn near Abukir Bay, and worse yet, as the seconds passed, interminably long, she realized that they were not being pulled back to their own time. A Spook Job was just a quiet manifestation in the target zone and then return—or at least it was supposed to be. This was only the second time they had tried such an operation. If it worked as Kelly planned, they should be standing in the Arch corridor by now, safe in the year 2010. But instead they were gawking at the simple furnishings of a small room. The dull brown walls were shaped of dried earth with embedded stone, and hung with brightly colored tapestries. A thick rug covered the floor, with an ornate pattern in a stylized geometric design. Arabic, she thought, her mind filling in the blanks as they struggled to understand what had happened to them.

  “He’s done it again,” Nordhausen was saying, but Maeve was still taking in her surroundings. Her eyes fixed on a low wood table, a few feet in front of them. There was a small tea pot of polished brass sitting on the table. Tiny curls of steam emerged from the curved spout, spiraling up into the dissipating fog about them. A simple porcelain cup was tilted on its side, the brown stain of freshly spilled tea still wetting the lacquered table top. She noted the simple decoration painted on the cup, a star embraced by a sickle moon and surrounded by Arabic writing.

  “Damn the man,” said Nordhausen, “he’s botched the numbers again, I tell you! Now where in blazes are we?”

  Maeve was still speechless as she watched the professor move cautiously toward a single open window on the far wall. It was clear that the shift had failed. They were not on their intended coordinates, at least not spatially. God only knew where they were, or when, but Nordhausen was already getting far too curious. She forced herself to speak, her voice dry in her throat.