by Brian Smith
Hydra
Outside the town Leonidas was on duty at the air force base when the alarm came to scramble. Within minutes his squadron was over the town. The streets were full of fleeing people. In some areas there was carnage and after that everything was quiet. All that could be seen was a peculiar grey mass that was pouring through the streets. Leonidas spotted the Hydra. Its many heads were busy slaughtering the inhabitants and its scaly necks were awash in bright red blood. Leonidas fired a missile. It struck one of the heads. The head exploded into a shower of blood and brain. "Got you bastard," Leonidas cheered. Moments later two new heads grew back just as his plane passed over the hydra. One of her heads flung itself upwards and snatched the jet out of the air. It crashed into the ground exploded into a huge ball of fire.
When Chara saw footage of the hydra on TV she immediately understood what it meant. In spite of growing up in a culture that for hundreds of years had treated ancient Greek myths as no more than figments of imagination she instinctively knew that those ancient stories had to be true. The devastation and death caused was so massive and advancing so rapidly that there was no time to think about things in any case. Chara grabbed a few belongings, dashed to her car and drove to Mount Olympus. Many of the others present at the Prometheia festival were there already.
"What does it mean?" was the only thing she could say.
"The meaning is simple, isn't it?" a man said. "Our forefathers were right about the Gods. They feared the Gods and we can see that they had good reason to."
"But why now," a young woman asked. "Nothing happened for the last two thousand years. So what's wrong now?"
A heated debate broke out which was quickly interrupted by a woman wearing white robes. Chara recognized her as one of the priestesses from the Prometheia festival.
"That," she said forcefully, "is the wrong question. "We must ask ourselves what we can do."
"So what can we do?" Chara asked.
"Simple," the priestess replied. "We must do as the ancients did. We must make a sacrifice. We must sacrifice to propitiate the Gods and we must continue to sacrifice until they are propitiated. It is either that or we're all going to die. We have all seen on TV what is going on. We have seen how useless our weapons are. Let us do now what we can do before it's too late."
The priestess gave instructions and soon some of the group were building a makeshift altar for the sacrifice, while others were gathering wood and another group went to find an animal to sacrifice. They returned with a sheep which they quickly put on the altar and held down. The priestess spoke a prayer begging the Gods for mercy while the sheep bleated pitifully. Then she cut its throat. Bright red blood gushed out and ran across the grey stones of the altar. They then lit a fire and put the sheep on it. Everyone prayed and begged the Gods to accept the sacrifice.
The smell of the sacrificed sheep rose up into the air in a column of dark smoke. High up the pleasing scent of the mutton wafted around the noses of Hera and some other Gods and Goddesses.
"A sacrifice to us," Hera said. "Now there's something I haven't smelled in a long time."
"So it is," Ares, the God of war said. "Now that you mention it we've neglected the mortals for rather too long, I fear. Riding about with Hermes in his chariot is most amusing but I think we'd better take a break. And just look down at the mortals, what a war they're fighting!"
"That's no war," Aphrodite said sadly. "Behold the gates of the underworld! They're wide open and death is ravaging the land. There's no love left anywhere."
"But who made the sacrifice?" Hera asked.
"There on Mount Olympus," Ares said. There's a small group of mortals begging for our help. What shall we do?"
To Zeus we must go," Aphrodite said. "He's the only one who can send Hades back to his own realm." She saw the worried look on Hera's face. "Oh, I know it won't be easy but there's nothing else we can do now."
"Very well," Hera nodded slowly. "To Zeus we must go and beg for his mercy."
"What about the supplicants on Mount Olympus?" Ares asked.
"I'll fly to Hercules and ask him to stand guard there," Hermes said.
While Hermes flew off in search of Hercules the other Gods went straight to Zeus.
Hades was the first to spot them coming. "See, brother, it is as I said. Let the mortals perish and Hera will come to you soon enough. Here she is hurrying to you with the other Gods close on her heels."
When Hera reached Zeus she threw herself at his feet. Before he could blow into a rage she admitted everything she had done, how she commanded Hypnos, the God of sleep and dreams, to do her bidding, and how she and the other Gods had wiled away the centuries while Zeus was sleeping and dreaming.
Her openness and contrition surprised Zeus who was used to her scheming, her lies, complaints and accusations that often made their relationship unbearable for him.
"My Lord," Aphrodite said giving Zeus her sweetest smile. "Is it not enough that we have been separate for all these long years. Let us turn this reunion into a happy event that we can all enjoy." She slipped her arm under his and gently pressed her body against his. Hera was beginning to seethe with indignation at the Goddess of Love flirting so overtly with her husband, but then she decided to pretend not to see. "After all," she said to herself, "I can always get my own back later."
"Then what do you suggest?" Zeus asked. He quickly fell under Aphrodite's irresistible spell and forgot about his anger.
"A feast," she said. "A feast to celebrate our reunion."
The Gods and Goddesses made merry and many a chalice of wine was emptied and many a kiss given before anyone remembered the mortals and the predicament they were in. By that time the small band of worshippers on Mount Olympus who were guarded by Hercules were the only people left alive on the Earth. Hades was sent back to his shadowy realm with all his subjects. Chara and the others, the 'miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion' as a priest had called them, were left to repopulate the Earth. Never again would they neglect the Gods.
The Time Machine
One day in early autumn in the not so distant future Henry Purcell walked to the main entrance of his villa. He breathed into the DNA breathalyser that served as a lock and the front door swung open automatically. Security cameras watched and ensured that no unpermitted person entered with him before closing the door again. He stepped through the derober which removed his streetwear and shoes and proceeded through the main hall to his study where the butlerbot had already placed a nutrient drink on his desk. Henry Purcell loved new technologies and if there was any kind of new gimmick available, irrespective of how useful or silly it might be, he would buy it. That aside he did a good bit of inventing and building himself which was partly the reason he preferred nutrient drinks to traditional meals. "Why," he would say to himself, "why waste an hour on a meal when sipping a drink had the same effect?" To him eating like sleeping might be a biological necessity but hardly something desirable. He was a man of action, a man of work, a man of the world economy who constantly strove to better his own life by earning more, acquiring more and inventing more. Few things were more loathsome to him than time lost being idle.
There was nothing to be said about his appearance. After all, who cares what a robot in the factory looks like as long as it does its work well?
It should come as no surprise that an important area he was interested in was how to make things more efficient so people could save time. On the day he strode into his home he was working on solving a critical question of transport. Transport was slow and expensive. Even on Earth it took much too long to get from one point to another, but in space the distances were prohibitively huge. What was the point of building a spaceship if the voyage to even the nearest stars took decades? There had to be an alternative and he, Henry Purcell, was not only determined to find it, but was indeed on the verge of a major breakthrough. To be more precise, after years of calculations and research he had built a prototype transporter that, if he was correct, should transport itsel
f and anything in it to any destination in the universe in a split second provided the computer was given the correct destination in a three dimensional grid.
The only problem was that for travel to be reliable the precise location of a destination had to be known. This made travel to more distant parts of the galaxy impossible. Nevertheless it would make an enormous difference to travel in the vicinity of our solar system. He decided that as a first test flight, if one could call it a flight, he would transport himself to the international base on Mars. Here was a destination whose exact location was well-known and that was large enough to make sure he would arrive inside it even if there was a slight deviation from the destination. As an additional security measure he decided to wear a space suit.
At long last the great moment had come. Henry Purcell entered his transporter, did a final systems check and re-calculated all the data required for his destination. Everything checked, everything worked. With the confidence of someone who had flown a thousand times before he activated the transport program. The light vanished and he felt like someone in a coma, his mind worked but he couldn't move. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the light came back. His first sensation was one of feeling light too. "Of course I'm light," he said to himself. "I'm on Mars. Gravity here is just 38% of that on Earth."
Delighted he opened the hatch and looked out. A bleak, forbidding landscape greeted him. Rocks, stones and dust all the way to the horizon, all in the same hue of rusty brown. "Death and damnation," he cursed. "Where's the international base? It has to be here." He quickly got out of the transporter and looked around. There was no sign of human activity anywhere. No buildings, no vehicles, not even any vehicle tracks let alone an entire base. And yet the area looked strangely familiar to him. To his left was a nullah, an ancient watercourse, and on the far side a long hill with a gentle slope. Just behind him extended a vast plain. Then it struck him. It looked exactly like the place where the international base was located. He got back in the transporter and accessed the computer for images of the base. "Just as I thought," he said. "I'm in the right place, but what's happened to that infernal base? It can't just have vanished."
He focused his mind on everything that had happened and on the information available to him. There had to be a mistake somewhere, but what was it. Slowly a suspicion emerged and began to take shape in the back of his mind. He activated the communications system and searched for any signals but drew a blank. Then he redirected the receiver towards Earth. He found a faint signal which the computer amplified.
"ongoing rescue efforts at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant??it is reported that radiation is expected to spread in a northern direction due to prevalent winds?"
"Chernobyl? When the heck was that? Computer, what year was the Chernobyl disaster?"
"On 26 April 1986."
Henry Purcell sat dumbfounded. Then it struck him. "But of course! How silly of me. I forgot one of the parameters. If the transporter goes via an area where there is no space then there can be no time there either. I'll have to recalculate everything."
But without access to his main computer that was easier said than done and time was running out as the oxygen supply in his suit was limited. He did the best he could and activated the transporter to take him back to his point and time of origin.
When the light came on again he felt the strong gravitational pull of Earth. "Good old Earth," he said. At least I made it back again. How could I be so stupid to forget about the time factor!" He opened the hatch but instead of his workshop there was a vast expanse of desert. The undulating dunes continued all the way to the horizon. "Now what," he cursed. "Don't tell me I'm back in the age of dinosaurs." He took off his helmet and breathed the hot arid air. The energy gauge of the transporter was low. "Not enough left for another trip now," he said. He deployed a solar panel and stepped out of the transporter. "Might as well look around while I'm waiting. The scorching heat was unbearable. He turned round to look in the other direction and was met with a breathtaking view. Resplendent in all its glory stood the great pyramid at Giza complete with its white marble exterior and gold peak that radiated like a heavenly fire in the glare of the sun. Mouth agape he stared at the unexpected sight. "This is certainly turning out to be more exciting than I'd bargained for," he said. He took off his space suit and walked towards the pyramid. He found walking across the hot sand slow and arduous. As he came round the pyramid he saw a canal stretching from its base into the distance. People clad in ancient Egyptian garb were milling about, oblivious to his presence. But when he came nearer he was spotted by one man who immediately started yelling and pointing at him. When the crowd became aware of him people moved towards him, slowly and yet he felt menacingly. He turned with the intention of leaving again but found that his way was cut off. The crowd drew ever tighter around him like the noose around a neck. He held out his hands open to show he was harmless and smiled. "Hi," he called out and kept smiling. "Hot day today, eh? I wish you wouldn't all keep staring at me like that?"
But if he had hoped to appease the crowd he was disappointed. If anything, the sound of his voice enraged the crowd who began shouting at him and even pushing him angrily. Then suddenly he felt a blow to his head and he collapsed.
The next thing he knew he was lying in a wooden cart with his hands tied behind his back. His head felt like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer and he could feel a trickle of blood running through his hair and every beat of his heart was pounding in his head. He lay still for a while, the cart rumbling across the uneven track. Peeping out of one eye he saw the silhouette of a man walking beside the cart against the glare of the sun.
"Hell's bells," he cursed under his breath. "Now I've really landed myself in it. Instead of being feted at the international base on Mars as the hero who made space travel quick and easy, I've become a prisoner in ancient Egypt. Time travel's supposed to be impossible anyway." He began to re-examine the equations and calculations for his transport project but nothing seemed to make much sense and he slowly drifted off into an uneasy slumber with numbers, pyramids, equations and Egyptians whirling around his mind like in a grotesque maelstrom.
Several weeks later Henry Purcell, inventor and respected scientist, found himself in the unenviable position of being a domestic slave in a large house in Alexandria. After his capture he was taken to court where he understood nothing and was sentenced to slavery. He was not even taken to a slave market but brought immediately to the house he was serving in. The only silver lining in his deplorable condition was that people there spoke Greek rather than Egyptian and as he had studied ancient Greek at school he was able to understand basic things from the very beginning which enabled him to make fast progress in the language. His days were filled with menial tasks that he found degrading, but as his mind was preoccupied with the problem of how to incorporate the time factor into his calculations so that he would be able to return to his own time safely, he often made a mess of his domestic chores and was regarded as having little intelligence. "Here's the gormless one again," was a comment often made by the other slaves and servants who more often than not had to sort out the mess he made.
One day he was sweeping the floor in the main hall. He was so absorbed in his train of thought that he forgot to move on and kept sweeping the same patch over and over again. The majordomo watched speechless and with growing anger. Never in all his life had he had to deal with such an extreme case of absent-minded incompetence. Suddenly Henry Purcell had the broom ripped from his hands. The furious majordomo yelled at him and started thrashing him with the broom, which fortunately was no more than a bundle of light twigs tied together. Henry Purcell retreated to the yard of the estate where the majordomo threatened him with far worse than a mere broom if he dared show his face inside the house again and left him standing without further instructions. For Henry Purcell this turn of events was unexpected but not altogether unpleasant. Being freed from his onerous domestic duties meant he could concentrate all the better
on his own problems. He sat down with his back against the wall. While he was thinking his hands played absent-mindedly with the sand beside him. His hands slowly dug into the loose sand and then let it glide through his fingers. It was then that he made a discovery that would ultimately destroy the world - a piece of chalk.
Delighted with his find he stood up and began writing equations across the walls of the building. He was left undisturbed for several hours which meant that he was able to cover a large part of the walls with equations, numbers and mathematical symbols. Later in the day when the majordomo had recovered from his rage and had some time to spare he remembered his gormless slave and decided to see what he was up to. When he discovered his gormless slave writing all across the walls he was dumbfounded. Slaves couldn't write, most people couldn't write their own name, and someone who could write so much had to be important. It slowly began to dawn on the majordomo how mistaken they had all been in their judgement of 'the gormless one'. Not knowing what to do he did the only thing he could. He went to the master of the house and explained the matter. The master came and watched Henry Purcell in silence for some time. "Friend," he said, "what is it you are writing?" But Henry Purcell was too absorbed to notice him. He took the chalk away and repeated the question. Torn from his thoughts Henry Purcell was somewhat irritated but he understood that the speaker was someone of importance. It was a simple question and yet a hard one to answer. "I am calculating the relationship of time and space in a space-time continuum if that continuum is circumvented. It's a rather long story," he added hastily seeing the perplexed look on the other's face, "but it's vital to me, in fact it's a matter of life and death."
"I've never met or even heard of anyone like you. You must come from very far away."
"Yes, that's true in a manner of speaking," Henry Purcell said. "What's your name?"
"My name," he said in surprise. "I'm the master of this house, Eratosthenes is my name. Everyone knows me in Alexandria and beyond, I'm the Chief Librarian at the Great Library."
Eratosthenes the Chief Librarian at the Library of Alexandria! This time it was Henry Purcell who was flabbergasted. "I can't believe this," he thought. "Eratosthenes, the man who first proved the Earth is round, the man who calculated the circumference of the Earth and the distance to the sun, and all that 200BC! And I'm standing face to face with him." He looked at Eratosthenes in awe. "Yes, I've heard of you, of course I know you. I just had no idea this was your house."
"Come with me," Eratosthenes said kindly. "Let us go and talk."
They went to Eratosthenes' study where Henry Purcell told him about everything, where he was from, his own time, how he had accidentally discovered time travel, and most importantly that he had to work out exactly how to incorporate the time factor in his calculations so as to be able to return to his own time.
Eratosthenes thought matters over for some time and shook his head slowly. "You should never have done this," he said with a frown. He looked out of the window where the leaves of palm trees swayed in a gentle zephyr. "Nothing good will come out of it, that's one thing I'm sure. What I don't know is how to help you. Never in all my time at the Great Library have I come across anything that might help. Yet help you must have for it is impossible for you to stay in this time. It is imperative that you return to your own time as soon as possible and never use your invention after that." He looked at Henry Purcell with piercing eyes, not sure whether to believe his incredible story. "There is only one man alive who might, just might be able to help you. He is a friend of mine. His name is Archimedes."
A fortnight later Henry Purcell was standing on the deck of a Phoenician trireme. The wind was fair and the ship was making good way towards its destination, the city of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. Henry Purcell wasn't very keen on trusting his life to an ancient ship that took him ever farther away from his transporter, but he had little choice. He was so used to having powerful computers helping him with mathematical problems that doing so without one would in all probability take him years. And if Archimedes lived up to his reputation as the world's greatest mathematician ever he might just be able to get the help he needed. Armed with a letter of introduction from Eratosthenes he was sure Archimedes would do his best to help. He wondered why Eratosthenes was so categorically opposed to time travel. The predicament he found himself in was more than just problematic, of course, but that had nothing to do with time travel in principle, it was only a question of doing things properly. And yet Eratosthenes had made him promise never to use his invention again apart from one final trip back to his own time. It was an absolute condition Eratosthenes had imposed in return for his help. Just then a shout arose. "Pirate ship!"
Henry Purcell looked about and saw a ship pursuing them in the distance. He was on a merchant ship and the only hope they had was to outrun the pirates. Naked feet pounded the decks running hither and thither, some getting arms and others manning the oars. The sound of a drum began to fill the ship. Long rows of oars dipped into the sea and propelled the ship forward. Faster and faster the drum beat and ever faster the oars moved in and out of the water, but it was not enough. The pirate ship gained on them, slowly at first but when the oarsmen aboard the merchant vessel began to tire it became clear that they could not get away.
"Pox and pestilence," Henry Purcell cursed. "That's the last thing I need. If those pirates capture us I'll never make it back to the transporter."
Several men began to assemble at the stern armed with bows and arrows while others prepared buckets of water.
"What are they doing?" he asked the captain.
"When the pirates are near enough we'll try to shoot burning arrows at their sail. If it catches fire we may be able to escape. But they'll be doing the same, so we have the buckets to put out any firebrands."
When the pirate ship was near enough an arrow came flying across to test the range. It hit the stern of the merchant vessel low down. One of their own archers shot back but the arrow fell a few feet short into the water at the bow of the pirate ship. On the deck of the pirate ship Henry Purcell could make out men armed to the teeth with swords, axes and other nasty things that he preferred not to think about.
The captain shook his head sadly. "We're lost," he said. "Their arrow carried farther than ours. They'll set our sail ablaze soon. There's no escape."
"Yes there is," Henry Purcell said suddenly. "It's just a question of mathematics."
The captain sighed. "I know that you're important and you know famous men, but here all their wisdom is of no use."
"And I tell you it is," Henry Purcell said with determination. "The mathematics of ballistics states that a missile travels farthest if it is launched at an angle of forty-five degrees. Your archers are holding their bows in the wrong way. Here let me show you." He walked over and directed an archer how to hold his bow. An arrow was let loose and flew high up into the air. They all watched it with bated breath and when it hit the enemy sail a loud cheer arose on the merchant ship. They quickly fired burning arrows in the same way and minutes later the pirates' sail was ablaze while the pirates' own arrows were still falling short. It wasn't long before the pirates had to give up their pursuit and the Phoenician merchant ship was able to sail away.
Henry Purcell was the hero of the day. Overjoyed the captain and his crew gave him profuse thanks.
"I will never forget what you have done for us," the captain said to him. "You saved our ship, our cargo, our freedom and even our lives. If there's anything we can ever do to repay our debt you must come to me and we will help you."
Henry Purcell was not a very emotional person and found himself embarrassed by the outpouring of gratitude and joy. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I'll be quite happy if you get me to Syracuse safely and quickly."
And that's exactly what the captain did, for they arrived in Syracuse the very next day. Henry Purcell bade his shipmates a heartfelt farewell not expecting to see them ever again and set off in search of Archimedes.
Thanks to Eratosthenes' letter Henry Purcell received a warm welcome from Archimedes who found the idea of time travel intriguing but concurred with Eratosthenes that it was something not to be tried.
"Why not?" Henry Purcell asked a little taken aback at the vehemence with which these two eminent scientists spoke against his discovery.
"Why not, you ask? But have you never thought of all the things that could go wrong even if the utmost care was taken? Why you might accidentally travel to the moment my mother was born with your machine causing the house she was in to collapse and to kill her. And what would the world be without an Archimedes?" he said with evident pride. "In fact the number of things that could go disastrously wrong is so large that the number itself verges on the infinite. Every single time you use your machine you increase the risk exponentially. That you as a mathematician should not have realized this is astounding. Have you no brains to think at all?" he exclaimed visibly vexed at the other's lack of reasoning.
Crestfallen Henry Purcell slowly nodded. "I suppose you're right," he said. "I hadn't really thought it over as I'd never intended to travel through time, I only wanted a faster way of getting from one place to another."
"Oh, I know, I know, or I'd have beaten your head in with this crown the moment you set foot in my house, but you must promise me only to use your machine for a last trip back to your time and then to destroy it. This thing must never become known to anyone else."
"All right then, I agree. One last trip only," he said looking at the crown. "I say, is that not the king's crown?"
"What? Oh yes, yes it is. It's nothing important really. The king thinks that the goldsmith who made it for him cheated on the amount of gold used. The king's quite right, the goldsmith did cheat. Silly to try to cozen a king. I've had it here for a while. The problem was quite simple to solve really but sometimes it's good to let the king wait a bit. His gratitude will be all the greater if he feels the problem was bigger than it really was."
Just then a messenger arrived from King Hiero II requesting the presence of Henry Purcell.
"Whatever you do," Archimedes said quietly, "don't tell the king the truth. If he thinks he can travel through time he'll have us tortured to death to get his hands on that invention of yours!"
The king it turned out was interested in hearing news from Alexandria, in particular from Eratosthenes. With what he remembered from history class Henry Purcell made up a story of new discoveries by Eratosthenes that kept his majesty spellbound.
Archimedes meanwhile decided that the best way to approach the problem of time travel was to have a relaxing bath where he could let his mind wander freely. He immersed himself in the warm water with the pleasant sensation of heaven engulfing his body that launched his mind into a tempest of thoughts. Numbers and equations filled his brain as he busied himself trying to understand the mathematical concepts he had learnt from Henry Purcell. "Be logical! Keep it simple, just like the crown!" his mind suggested. He closed his eyes and thought and thought. Then it struck him. The solution was simple. It had been there all along. In fact, Henry Purcell had told him without realizing it. Archimedes jumped out of the bath and in his excitement forgot to put anything on. He ran out of the house stark naked and headed for the royal palace shouting "Eureka! I have it, I have it!"
The good people of Syracuse watched their most famous citizen in bemusement as he ran through the streets, thus not only giving them something to talk and laugh about for years to come but also ensuring the lasting fame of his exploit. At the palace the surprised guards let him run through the gates and all the way to the king's grand hall. Shouts of 'Eureka' rang through the palace and when he reached the king's hall he took Henry Purcell by the hands and danced with joy. The king, thinking that the mystery of his crown was solved happily looked at Archimedes, while Henry Purcell alone understood the true reason for Archimedes' extraordinary appearance.
"Well then," King Hiero said finally. "What about my crown?"
Archimedes suddenly remembered where he was and what everyone else had to be thinking. "Ah yes, the crown. It contains less gold than you gave the goldsmith."
"You are sure?"
"Yes, your majesty. The goldsmith cozened you."
"And where is my crown?"
"Oh well," Archimedes said with embarrassment. "I suppose I was too excited about solving the problem to remember to bring it." He looked down his nude body. "I seem to have forgotten other things as well."
The king laughed. "Never mind. I'll send some guards to accompany you back home. You'll give it to them. And you," he said to Henry Purcell, "may also leave."
And thus one of the most famous and enduring stories about science in the ancient world was concluded and yet only two men knew the truth about Archimedes' run in the nude.
"You know," Henry Purcell said, "even two thousand years from now people will still be reading about how the famous Archimedes ran through the streets of Syracuse stark naked when he solved the riddle of the king's crown."
"Ran through the streets over such a simple matter?" Archimedes said in disdain. "How could anyone believe that?"
"To be honest, I too read the story and believed it. But then, how could anyone have guessed the truth?"
"You're right," Archimedes said after a brief pause. "And people must never know the truth. Anyway, I think there is something you want to know," he said and explained how he had solved the riddle.
Several weeks later Henry Purcell was back in Alexandria after an uneventful journey. He immediately returned to the house of Eratosthenes where he was eagerly awaited.
"Well," Eratosthenes said, "how did everything go?"
"Splendid," Henry Purcell replied. "Actually the answer was there all along right before my eyes, but it took an Archimedes to spot it," and he related everything that had happened since his departure. "And now I can only hope that my transporter is still where I left it and hasn't been damaged by anyone."
"I'm afraid it's not there anymore."
Henry Purcell went pale. "What do you mean? Has it been stolen?"
Eratosthenes smiled. "Relax, my friend. I had it moved to my house for safe keeping. We couldn't risk anything happening to it now, could we? And a very heavy thing to move it was too. My men hardly managed and it cost me quite a sum to ensure they'd keep their mouths shut about it. So very soon you should be safely back in your time. We can only hope that your actions here haven't caused any damage into the future that we don't know about yet." He looked at Henry Purcell very sternly. "And don't you take any detours on your way home or ever use this infernal machine again just because you know how to use it now. It isn't safe and never will be, do you understand?"
"Why yes, certainly," he said somewhat abashed feeling like a schoolboy who was being admonished by his master. "Can I just ask you for one small boon before I leave?"
Eratosthenes looked at him askance. "Well then, what is it?"
"Take me to see the Library of Alexandria. It is still famous even in my time and seeing it would be a dream come true."
Archimedes thought for a moment. "Oh very well, I suppose no harm can come from it after all the things you have seen and done here."
After a tour of the library Archimedes took his ecstatic guest back to the transporter. They stopped at the entrance where they said their fare wells.
"Meeting you and your friend Archimedes has been the greatest pleasure and privilege of my life. I'll always remember you."
Eratosthenes smiled and embraced him. "Have a safe journey, my friend. And remember, no detours and no other trips. Destroy this thing when you're back home."
Henry Purcell entered the transporter and closed the hatch. He keyed in the correct data and prepared for launch. "How proud Mum and Dad would be if they could see me now," he said to himself. His parents had died several years before without knowing how successful their son would become. The thought of his parents gave him an idea. He would see them one more time before he returned home and destroyed the
transporter as he had promised. "Just one little detour won't matter," he told himself. "I've been through so much already, what should go wrong now. I'll just see them and then be on my way again."
He entered a new set of flight data and activated the transporter which vanished into thin air right before the eyes of Eratosthenes.
Two thousand two hundred years of history passed by, yet to Henry Purcell it was no time at all. His transporter emerged in the town of his birth where he had grown up. He had decided to see his parents when he was still a toddler to make sure they wouldn't recognize him. "Better safe than sorry," he said to himself feeling a bit guilty at not having heeded Eratosthenes' warning.
It was early in the morning, the time around dawn. Henry Purcell watched his parents' house in the twilight. A light came on. His mother was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. Then his father came in carrying little Henry Purcell. Half an hour later his father left for work and not long after his mother left the house. She held her little son's hand. When they came through the garden gate the little boy dropped his ball. It rolled to the feet of the adult Henry. He picked it up and handed it to the little boy. "Thank you," the little lad said and touched his hand.
The moment their hands met a rupture occurred in the space-time continuum that went all the way to the time where Henry Purcell had first travelled in time. He watched his mother walk down the road with her little son and felt tears welling up in his eyes. He quickly returned to the transporter and prepared to go home at last. "My very last journey," he said to himself.
The rupture in the space-time continuum ended the laws of physics in Henry Purcell's own time and the universe reverted to the state it was in before the Big Bang.
Henry Purcell activated his transporter and flew into oblivion.
The End
By the same author
Captain Kim Pottinger has been based on Mars for several years and he is feeling bored with the red dustball. All that is about to change when newly arrived Dr. Larry Wathen goes with him to find out why a team of scientists investigating Cydonia, an area famous for the Face and some pyramid shaped mountains, cannot be reached by radio anymore. Of particular concern to Kim is that his girlfriend Jane is one of the missing scientists. The discovery they make shatters their understanding of both Mars and Earth. But when things begin to go awry they wonder if they will ever return to Earth...
What is the truth about Mars? A gripping adventure story that began thousands of years ago on Earth in a land long vanished beneath the waves.
The Mars Conspiracy
ISBN-13: 978-1499620160
www.briansmith.de
Jeremiah, Master of the Temple, is an unscrupulous fraudster, liar and holy man. One day he has a very unusual chance meeting with Sycko, a troubled young man. Jeremiah persuades Sycko to join his temple where he is confronted with all the ingenious ways that Jeremiah comes up with to cheat people and get at their money until one day things begin to turn ugly...
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ISBN-10: 150062098X
Find out more about the author and his books.
www.briansmith.de
