Even when you know what’s going to happen, as time-travelers generally do, knowing exactly when it’s going to happen can be of critical importance—even the difference between life and death.
Bill Johnson has sold stories to many different markets, including Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, Black Gate, Amazing, and many others, but is one of those rare writers who has never written a novel. One of those stories, “We Will Drink a Fish Together,” won the Hugo Award in 1997. He has an MBA with an emphasis in finance from Duke University. He also has a BA in journalism from the University of Iowa and won the Best News Story of the Year award from the Iowa Press Association. At 6′8″ tall, he may be the tallest of all SF writers.
Nineveh: April, 612 BCE
Martin, dressed in priestly robes, stood at the Halzi Gate, facing south-east. It was early May and the heat was already rising, in waves, from the desert on the other side of the Tigris. He felt the sweat start inside his clothes. It made him itch and he tried to slip in a subtle scratch when no one was looking.
Stop that.
“Damn it,” Martin grumbled in silent mode. “You’re not my mother.”
No. Your mother isn’t born yet, Artie scolded him. And I’m something better. I’m your artificial intelligence. I’m always with you and I never sleep. And I only do what you tell me to do, so you can’t whine at me like you could at your mother. It would be … ineffective.
“Shut up,” Martin muttered. The priests around him stirred and glanced at him, puzzled. He realized he had fallen out of silent mode. He smiled back, apologetically. He was more tired than he realized.
It is, in many ways, the perfect life, Artie mused. I can do whatever I want, and I can’t be blamed for any of it.
“How would you like to go $9D?” Martin snapped, carefully in silent mode.
Cycle infinite until I overheat and burst into flames? How lovely. Do you really want me to self destruct immediately? But then, of course, you’d have to wait for me to be invented. And that’s not until—
Artie stopped abruptly.
“What?” Martin stopped.
I see them, Artie said, his voice cool and emotionless. From the telescope we’ve got mounted on the roof of the temple. The first soldier just marched over the horizon.
“Damn it,” Martin swore, in silent. “They didn’t win, did they?”
No.
“Thank God.”
For the next hour the defeated remnants of the Assyrian army passed north through the gates into Nineveh. Martin, along with the other priests, performed the purification rituals, bobbing his head and blessing the soldiers with his metal tipped rod as they streamed into the city. He always paid extra attention to the wounded. He remembered what it was like to be wounded.
Finally, there was a pause and a gap in the line of troops. Martin looked south, sharpened and extended his vision.
There was only one group left, of chariot cavalry, clustered together. They moved slowly north, the horses tired. Martin recognized the center unit as a heavy fighting platform, a three man unit. Standing, facing forward next to the driver, a grim look on his face, was the king, Sin-sar-iskun. Another man stood next to the king, his back to the city, guarding the rear.
“Where’s Larry?”
That’s him in the bodyguard position, next to the king.
Martin focused his sight. Larry was dressed in a battered helmet, an armored scale jacket and leggings. His hair was long and thick and dirty and fell down over his shoulders. He shifted position and came into profile. His beard was matted and streaked, cut straight across on the bottom in Assyrian style, and reached down to the top of his armor. He stood in the chariot, facing backward, his bow strung, his arrows ready next to him. His arms were bruised and battered and a fresh, long cut ran vertically down the side of his face, from forehead to jawline.
“He’s alive.”
Barely.
The king said something to Larry, and smiled. Larry turned to face the city and put his hand on the king’s shoulder. The king reached up and held Larry’s hand.
Martin dipped into Larry’s biological readings.
The king’s hand was light on Larry’s. It was warm and firm, calloused on the bow fingers, soft otherwise.
Gentle, Artie said. That’s the word you’re looking for. Gentle.
“Damn it,” Martin cursed.
It seems we have a problem …
Nineveh: May, 612 BCE
“And … the last city gate is now closed and barricaded. The guards are on full duty, with a shift change every four hours to keep them alert.”
Martin nodded, satisfied. He wore his usual uptime skinsuit, in full visibility mode. Devi, in priestess robes, sat at the monitor station. They were in the third floor of the temple, locked away and hidden behind impressively large metal doors and ornate locks. As well as other more subtle and effective safeguards.
“So, we’re fully surrounded. Welcome to the siege of Nineveh.”
Devi looked around the room.
“Doesn’t seem that much different to me.”
“It’s not, to us,” Martin said. Devi was a recent addition, a new timeliner, on board only a few centuries. She had claimed sanctuary and joined the Stone Eagle after her faction had lost a political fight up-time and she had been exiled downtime, to an alternate timeline. In her timeline—where the Chola Empire dominated south-east Asia—she had actually been a priestess. She had taken quickly to the switch from Kali to Ishtar.
“That’s why you have to be careful,” Martin warned her. “We can escape. They,” he gestured the city outside the room, “cannot. They will not.”
“You don’t want to give them hope.”
“I do want to give them hope,” Martin said, patiently. “I want to give them exactly as much hope—and then, in a few weeks and months—exactly as much despair, as all the other temples. I want us to be like every other temple. I want us to be water as it flows over a fish. I want to be totally unnoted and unremarkable.”
“But you want things to happen…?”
“The way they are supposed to happen,” Martin said, satisfied. “So, don’t be too cheerful or too depressed when you work with your clients. Talk with the priestesses from the other temples. Listen to the gossip. Repeat it enough to fit in socially. But do not embellish it, do not minimize it. Be like they are. And watch for anything that doesn’t fit in to the history we’re trying to build.”
Devi nodded.
“Good,” Martin said. He stood straighter, checked out the wall display. “Now, where is Larry?”
“I haven’t seen him, sir,” Devi said, carefully.
At the palace, Artie said. Overnight. Again. With the king.
“Damn it,” Martin snapped. Devi studied the display and made sure to keep her face still. She casually touched the table top. A few seconds later the sound of ili, the fifth note of the harp, sounded.
“Excuse me,” Devi said. She stood and adjusted her robes. “My time down on the first floor. Devotions.”
And she was gone.
Nicely done, Artie said, admiringly. Triggering the harp note on a delay was, perhaps, a little less than subtle but she obviously wanted to get the hell out of here …
“What is going on with him?” Martin asked, irritated. Artie triggered a surveillance still image.
King Sin-sar-iskun and Larry at a formal reception last night, at the main palace.
Larry stood before them, dressed in the formal garb—long white tunic, broad belt, tall fez-like hat—of an Assyrian general. His hair was long and clean, and flowed down to his shoulders. His moustache was oiled stylishly and his beard, full and strong, was cut straight and parallel at the bottom. He wore his sword, peace-bonded to its sheath, and another, smaller dagger on the other side.
He also stood just a little too close to the king. And the king smiled at him and held his hand.
What are we going to do about him? About Larry? About a man in love? A man in love who has to watch his lover die? Who has to arrange for his lover to die?
“Yes,” Martin said, uncomfortably.
Why are you asking me? I know, let me go through my if-then code on this, Artie said sarcastically. Oh, wait, I have no if-then for this situation! In fact, there are no rules or if-then for anything we’re doing. And why is that, Artie? Because we’re making this all up as we go along! So, how the hell do I know what to do?
Martin winced.
“Larry understands all this as well as I do,” he grumbled. “He knows what we have to do. Why is he making this hard on himself?”
It’s too much for him. He’s looking for a way out, Artie said, quietly. You know that. Do you want me to remind you of Gobekli Tepe? Didn’t you try to do exactly the same th—
“Shut up,” Martin said, tiredly. He closed his eyes, titled his head back, and blew air toward the ceiling. He brought his head back down and studied the display.
“Watch him,” Martin ordered Artie. “Nothing that matters is going to happen for the next few months. Maybe Larry just needs to get this out of his system.”
It’s more than that.
Martin waved his hand dismissively.
“I just want to get through this and out of Nineveh. Don’t let him screw things up. If he starts, let me know.”
And you’ll take care of the problem?
“And I’ll take care of the problem.”
Nineveh: July, 612 BCE
Martin sat at his equivalent of the captain’s table in the restaurant on the second floor of the temple. A fresh bottle of dessert wine, just uncorked, rested in a high-topped bowl full of crushed ice in the middle of the table. His table guests were carefully selected, a mixture of different times and cultures, all of them spending the night at the Stone Eagle.
“So, everyone here is from a different timeline?” one traveller asked and waved at the room around her, at the dazzling assortment of different clothing, of colors and styles and sheens.
“Yes,” Martin said. He studied the restaurant with a practiced eye. He mentally evaluated the staff as one of the waiters poured a glass of water, as a server delivered a meal, as the spirits steward displayed a collection of fine bourbons and cigars.
“Fascinating,” the traveller said. Her name was Mary, Martin suddenly remembered, from a Saturn orbiting habitat. She was with a graduate student group, on a thesis trip back to Varanasi. She pointed to one of the tables across the room. The men—they were all men—wore very severe, Roman-style haircuts. Their clothes were tunics and togas with formal strap-up sandals.
“What about them? What’s their story?”
“Vitruvius universe.”
“Vitruvius?”
“He was a genius in the Roman army, back in the time of Caesar. In your timeline he is remembered for his writings, but not much more. In their timeline he was more … persuasive? Aggressive? Whatever. A much better salesman of his ideas. In their timeline he used his relationship with Octavia Minor, the emperor Augustus’s niece, to turn his designs into actual inventions.”
“Inventions?”
“The steam engine, among others. He essentially pulled the Industrial Revolution of the 1700s CE back to 50 BCE. So they got quite a head start on everyone else.”
“Oh,” she said. She indicated another table. This one was all women, dressed in what appeared to be uniforms. The uniform blouses were, however, oddly unbalanced. They carried side-arms which were peace-bonded. Martin grimaced and sighed.
“Amazons. Or, to be more precise, Sarmatians. Female dominated military culture.”
“You don’t seem to approve.”
“Not up to me to approve or disapprove,” Martin said and shrugged. He pointed with his chin. “But I don’t particularly like self-mutilation. Ritual removal of a breast, particularly after the invention of firearms, seems to be taking things a bit too far.”
Martin noticed her glass was empty. He filled it and replaced the bottle.
“Perhaps I should just stay here,” Mary said thoughtfully as she glanced around the room. “I could change my thesis.”
“Ah, such a lovely idea,” Martin said smoothly. “But the longer you stay here, the more chance that something … unfortunate will happen to your connection to your own timeline. You would not wish to become stranded.”
Mary shuddered and put down her glass.
“No,” she said. “I would miss the Rings and the Pentagon Storm. And I have family back uptime.”
“Exactly,” Martin said. He lied smoothly. “We all must leave here regularly, to make sure that does not happen to us. To renew the connection, so to speak. It is a very expensive trip but, well, one has to work and still keep connections, yes?”
Mary smiled and laughed. Martin joined her, then stood, excused himself and slowly worked his way around the room to the floor manager.
“Larry?”
“Over there,” the floor manager, a woman named Stephanie, said in a low voice. Martin followed her eyes and saw Larry.
His Assyrian beard and moustache were gone and he was back in a standard skinsuit. He stood by a table, chatting with the guests.
“When did he change?”
First time was today, Artie said. You talked to him last night?
“Yes.”
You gave him an ultimatum, Artie said. It was a statement, not a question. Stay here and die with the king, or quit this nonsense and stay alive with us.
“Yes,” Martin said, uncomfortably. “Perhaps a little more tactfully than that.
Artie snorted.
You bio’s. All your worry about tact and feelings and sensitivities. It’s all nonsense, you know. If we—
“Yes, I know,” Martin interrupted. “If you AI’s were in charge, everything would be nicely organized and in its proper place. And everything would stay there.”
Exactly.
“No, that’s the problem.” Martin shook his head. “Everything would stay exactly the same. And then something outside of you would change and you would not be able to handle it and you would all be gone.”
Artie paused.
At least we don’t have to worry about feelings.
Martin smiled.
“Did he say anything to the king?”
No idea, Artie admitted. He invoked privacy override whenever he went to the private apartments in the palace.
“You should have told me about that,” Martin chided him.
You’re partners, not boss and employee, Artie reminded him. He gets privacy. Unless you want to invoke personal safety?
Martin studied Larry. He looked right: clean shaven, hair cropped, face repaired. He looked up from across the room, saw Martin. Larry’s face froze for a moment, then broke into a smile.
Martin smiled back.
Larry held the glance for a moment, then turned his attention back to the guests.
“No,” Martin decided. Everything seemed right, but …
“Watch him.”
Nineveh: August, 612 BCE
“When?” Larry asked.
“Tonight,” Martin answered, reluctantly.
“The deal is final? Damn it. Why? Why does it have to happen?”
Martin and Larry were on the third floor of the temple. The floor was empty except for them. The new timeliners had all carefully made themselves scarce.
Martin waved his hand at the world outside the control room, at the hills all around Nineveh. He felt his irritation rising and he firmly tamped it down.
“We’ve gone over this before,” Martin snapped. “It’s tonight because the tribes are getting impatient.”
Larry started to speak. Martin spoke first, a little louder, and spoke over him.
“You’ve been in the meetings with the tribes. They want this siege to end. It’s almost past harvest time for the chickpea crop and it’s time to plant the millet. If they don’t move soon, their families back home will starve. So they want to take this city, steal everything in it, and burn it to the ground. Then they want to go home.”
Larry gestured and a map appeared on the far wall. Nineveh was a small, bright spark in a spreading darkness. Fainter, but clear, lines of march routes, from Egypt and Babylon and Medea and Hatti, glittered into place.
“Maybe we can hold out just a little longer. Rumor is that the Egyptians are coming with an army,” Larry said hopefully.
Martin gestured impatiently. The map snapped shut.
“No.” Martin shook his head. “There is no Egyptian army. No one is coming to save Nineveh. The roads are empty all the way to Luxor. The only army coming is from the south, from Babylon. And they have blood in their eyes.”
“We could save Nineveh by ourselves,” Larry said, his voice desperate. “A visit from the gods. A few miracles, complete with lightning and explosions. We could send the tribes running back into the hills. Then get the Medes and the Babylonians to actually talk with Sin-sar-iskun. Work out a deal—”
“No!” Martin said and slammed his hand down on the table.
“But why?” Larry asked plaintively.
“Because the Babylonian Chronicles say it’s going to happen this way. Because Herodotus says it’s going to happen this way. Because the damned Bible says it’s going to happen this way. And there is no way in hell we’re going to re-write the Bible and then try to set things right.”
Martin sat down behind his desk and looked up to study Larry. Martin was comfortable in his usual up-time skinsuit and so was Larry.
“So it has to be this way?” Larry asked again. “Tonight?”
“Artie? How’s the river doing?” Martin asked, impatiently. “Explain reality to my partner.”
More big rains up in the mountains. Melted a lot of the leftover snow. So the water level of the river is still rising. Parts of the ground under Nineveh’s defensive walls are turning back into mud. Some of the outer walls are already starting to collapse, Artie said. Whoever picked this site was an idiot. Nineveh is just too close to the river.
“That’s why is has to be tonight,” Martin explained.
Larry opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out. He nodded and left the room.
You said you’d take care of this, Artie said reproachfully.
“Isn’t that what happened last month, when he shaved and changed his clothes and stopped going native? When he sent that message to the king, that he was ill and recovering in his favorite temple? Isn’t that what I just did, again, now?”
Artie said nothing. Martin scowled, then tapped the desktop. The latest schedule appeared.
“Did you send our final message to our people in the tribes? About which gate is going to be opened? And did you pay off the guards at the gate?”
Yes, yes and yes. A little after midnight the gate will be opened. The tribes will storm inside.
And Nineveh will burn.
Nineveh: Midnight, August, 612 BCE
The timber, stone and mud brick building was a full three floors tall, a solid but undistinguished presence near the main temple district. It overlapped the streets where the business of God transitioned into the business of man.
Martin, his skinsuit tuned to no see’um, sat on a small bench on the roof, in the darkness, and looked up and out, over the walls of Nineveh toward the hills which loomed over the city.
Martin heard the door behind him open, then close, and the soft crunch of sandals on the loose gravel spread across the roof. He extended his senses.
“It’s beautiful up here at night.”
Martin said nothing. He vaguely recognized the voice as one of the servants or slaves who worked on the first floor of the temple, the floor that was open to the locals.
A man-sized shape, a silhouette of darkness outlined against the stars, detached itself from the side wall of the small pillar that rose out of the center of the roof. The shape walked over to the bench and sat next to Martin.
“I can’t see you or hear you,” the shape said, conversationally.
The shape spoke in a soft, deep soprano. Martin realized she was a woman.
“But I know you’re here. I saw you climb up the ladder and shut the door behind you. No one came after you and the door never opened for you to come back down,” she said matter-of-factly. “So I know you are here. I also understand that when you wear your special clothes you can become as a ghost to me.”
She stretched, bare arms up and out, her back arched, chin up, like a cat ready for its nightly prowl outside. Martin changed to daylight vision. He recognized her now as one of the senior women who worked as official temple prostitutes in the back of the first floor, in the sacred rooms behind the great tapestries that framed the holy images and statues.
That she knew him, that she watched him, that she followed him and spoke to him, was all new.
And anything that was new was dangerous. He considered killing her and leaving her body on the roof. In a few hours it would not make any difference.
But … his eyes looked out and up, at the stars overhead.
Enough with killing tonight. He felt a deep weariness. To hell with everything.
He stayed invisible and tuned his voice to a deep rumble, to appear more mysterious. If she ran away, that was fine. If she stayed …
“So why do you sit here, when I clearly want to be left alone? On the roof of my own temple? With my own thoughts?” he said.
She faced up and out to the darkness.
“My name is Achadina,” she said.
Female diminutive of “ancient city,” Artie said to him. Like a reference and distorted oral transmission form of Akkad.
And Martin remembered the city of Akkad.
“Danger level?” Martin asked in silent mode.
None, Artie replied. She carries no weapons, no poisons and nothing that can hurt you. You are also far stronger than she is.
“So what does she want?”
Good question, Artie said drily. Why don’t you ask her?
Martin opened his mouth to snap back and then changed his mind. Argue with software? He’d done it before, many times, too many to count, and it had all the satisfaction of masturbation. A mechanical exercise with no real pleasure.
He turned off no see’um. He became another shape in the darkness on the bench.
Achadina did not acknowledge he was now, officially, next to her. Instead, she pointed to the hills above and outside the walls, to the sparkle and flicker of countless campfires, all around the city in unbroken, thick, circles.
“Who are they?” she asked, apologetically. “My clients are not very forthcoming with information.”
“They are all of our enemies,” he explained. He pointed to different areas, from left to right, in a circle around the city. “A few Babylonians. A Mede named Cyaxeres and his army. Persians. Scythians. Chaldeans. Cimmerians.”
“And why do they want to kill us? Why do they want to kill us now?”
Martin thought of the usual answers, the glib words he had spoken to the king and his ministers and the great priests and the nobles over the last three months of the siege.
And he was just sick of it all.
“I could say they want our gold and silver. I could say they want our men and women and children as slaves. I could say they want to burn our temples and palaces and grind us into the dirt so we are never a threat to them, ever again.”
“Is that the real answer?” Achadina asked.
Martin shrugged.
“It’s part of the answer but, no, it’s not the real answer.”
“And the real answer is…?”
“Because now it’s time for them to do all those things,” he said. He wanted to sound bitter but he could not make it come out right. All he sounded was tired. “They’re here to kill us because now it is August, 612 BCE, and the time is right.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hesitantly. “I don’t understand.”
“I know,” Martin said.
“But I understand more than you think,” she snapped.
“Really?”
“Achadina is a very old name,” she said. She stared along with him, out into the darkness and up at the hills.
After a moment she turned and pointed up behind and above them, to the top of the wall just above the staircase pillar. There, high up on the stone, visible to the streets in every direction, was the carved image of a stone eagle.
“When the Stone Eagle flies, it’s time to run.”
Martin stiffened.
She knows! Artie said, startled. How can she know?
Martin turned to face her. For a moment, wildly, he wondered if she was someone sent back to rescue him.
“Akkad? You remember Akkad?”
Achadina looked at him, tried to study him in the darkness. He thought for a moment she scowled, but then realized it was something else.
She was desperate.
She shook her head.
“I am not a priest. None of my tribe are priests. So what you see when you look at me is what you get. I was born here and now, and I grow old and I die here and now. Akkad was born and flourished and burned to ash a thousand years ago and I never walked its streets. But my family and my tribe remember Akkad.”
Relax, Artie whispered. Martin felt the familiar cool edge as his heart rate slowed and settled, his thoughts channeled and focused. He gave himself a moment until he was under control, then continued.
“Tell me about your tribe and your family,” Martin ordered.
“My family is simplest. I have a daughter and a son. Aurya and Nabo Pal.”
“His father was Nabo,” Martin said, aloud. Achadina nodded.
“Nabo also served you, in this house, as a sweeper, until the army caught him out on the street one day. They claimed he owed ilko—
Conscription into national service, Artie explained.
—and was dragged away. I have not heard from him since,” she said. She went silent for a moment. “He was a good man.”
Checking, Artie supplied. I tagged him with a monitor chip when he started to work for us.
“And?”
And he’s dead. He caught typhus. He was left behind after he collapsed on the march south from here. One of his friends wrapped him in a blanket and gave him a water skin. After the Assyrians lost the big battle, the Babylonians came north and found him. They stole his clothes and blanket and his water and left him naked in the dirt. He died of thirst and exposure the next day.
“He is dead,” Martin said. He looked at her again and then he lied. “He fought bravely. His death was swift and painless.”
Achadina dipped her head, then nodded her thanks.
“I suspected as much,” she admitted. She looked up at him, her expression fierce and determined. “He might be dead. But I intend to live. And I will make sure my children live. And free, not as slaves.”
“What do you know?” Martin asked.
Achadina hesitated, then seemed to make a decision.
“Many of my tribe work in the Stone Eagle,” she said, and gestured to include the temple and the neighborhood around it. “We live in the buildings all around here. All of us trace our line back, through many generations, to Akkad. To the first empire. To the first Stone Eagle.”
Martin was tempted to argue with her but decided against it. He remembered earlier eagles than the eagle at Akkad. He remembered eagles sketched on rock outside of caves or stitched onto the skins of shelters on the plains. He remembered eagles carved and painted on the outside walls of taverns and temples in Jericho and Shediet and Varanasi and Chang’an and Barada. But it was better if she did not know about them. It gave him a change point for this timeline as a reference.
“Go on.”
“One of my greats—a woman,” she said defiantly, as if she expected him to argue with her, “was very clever. She realized that whenever anything bad was about to occur in Akkad, the stone eagle above the tavern or the temple or wherever it was carved, disappeared off the wall. It didn’t matter if it was plague or flood or fire or war, the stone eagle always flew away before the badness began. You always escaped.”
“I am merely a man,” he said mildly. “I may have some powers but I can hardly claim to be old enough to have walked the streets of Akkad.”
“Do not lie to me, priest,” she said, tiredly. “Do not play with me as you would a child. I’m not a child. I’m not as old as you, but I’m not a child. I have children of my own. I’ve buried parents and brothers, children and grandparents. And now a husband, if I can find him. I may not have your years, but I know how life works and what pain is like.”
He was silent for a moment, then nodded. Perhaps Larry was right when he told Martin he spent too much time on the upper floors of the temple. Perhaps he needed to get down to the first floor more often, to see the crowds around them as people, not just as a faceless ocean they swam in as they lived their way toward home.
“My apologies,” Martin said, and he meant it. “There are times when I forget.”
“This great was a potter and an artist,” Achadina continued. “She shaped a small statue of you and the other priest, Larry. You both look exactly the same now as you did all those years ago in Akkad. She also used the wedge to write what she knew on a small tablet.
“And, when she was dying, she passed these on to her own daughter. And to her daughter. And on and on.”
This is a disaster! Artie wailed. An entire tribe that knows about us? My God, we’ll have to go back and fix this. And after we go back, how many years will we have to re-live? A thousand? Two thousand? No, no, no …
“Shut up,” Martin said in silent, precisely and sharply. “So far we have to do exactly nothing.”
But they know about us—
“And so far nothing has changed,” Martin interrupted. “Nothing has gone off the trail. We are still living the path back home. History is happening exactly as it should.”
He focused back on Achadina.
“What do you know about this time? Why do you think the eagle is about to fly?”
“We work in every corner of the temple, in all the jobs you priests do not want to do for yourself,” Achadina said. “We know about the holy places on the first floor where the ordinary people of the city visit. But we also cook and clean and have sex with the travellers who visit the restaurant on the second floor.”
“Travellers?”
“The odd ones from the future and the past,” she said, matter-of-factly. “The ones who taught us that the past and future are not one simple path but more like a basket full of loose threads. And all these threads are strung together with different starting points and ending points and different events, like knots, along the thread.”
Timelines, Artie said. They know about the timelines.
“Shut up,” Martin said once more in silent. “I will not tell you again. But I will override you and put you into watch-only mode.”
“Yes?” he encouraged Achadina.
“But you do not travel that way,” Achadina said, thoughtfully. “You live each day as we do, each day as it comes, one small step each day. Toward what? Why not jump around as the others do? Why live among us? Why take the time?”
Martin hesitated. He looked up at the hills, at the thousands of campfires and imagined the men around each speck of light as they sharpened their weapons.
Don’t do it, Artie warned. Martin ignored him. Somehow, for some reason, talking to Achadina made him feel better, made things hurt less.
“This time, now, is far in my past. Akkad was farther still. And even Akkad was only a short distance to me. My original goal was far, far, earlier than Akkad,” Martin said. “But I had a job to do. I went back. Many, many greats- back. I did what I set out to do and then tried to go home. I could not. I could go farther back, but not forward. Not to any future I recognized.”
“Your thread was gone from the basket,” Achadina said. “Fallen out and lost.”
Martin nodded. It was a different kind of analogy but it fit.
“The only way for me to go home is one day at time,” he explained. “I must make sure the future I remember is created. I must weave my thread again.”
“Larry?”
“We met later. He was also stranded. We work together to make our future.”
“He comes from the same future as you?”
Martin hesitated, then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Our futures are the same for a long time yet to come but then there will have to be a … separation.”
“One of you will get the future you want,” Achadina said. “One of you will be stranded. You will either have to start over or live into a different future.”
“Yes,” Martin admitted. “But that time is not yet. So, for now, we are friends.”
“The travellers from the past and the future? And the lesser priests? The ones who take your orders?”
Martin shrugged.
“The travellers have pasts and futures that still exist. We set up the Stone Eagle clubs as a way to attract them, to give them a taste of home. They get to relax and we are paid in information and different … gifts, they provide us.”
“They don’t know you are stranded?”
“No.”
“The lesser priests? The ones who stay here in the temple and live each day, like you do.”
“They are like Larry and myself. They’ve also lost their home … thread, but they are only stranded for a limited time. When we reach their closest change point they will leave us and try to live in something that should resemble their home timelines.”
Achadina sat silent for a moment. Finally she came to a decision and nodded to herself.
“There is something you may not know,” she said slowly.
“Yes?”
“I always keep people watching the outside of the temple, as well as the inside,” she said. “A little time ago, on the first floor, I saw the senior priest Larry, accompanied by two of the lesser priests, walk to the main entrance and leave the temple. He wore his special clothes, the ones that cling to your skin and let you take on any image. He looked unusually grim. It made me uneasy, so I checked with my outside watchers.
“They swore that Larry never left the temple. Instead they saw General Assur, the king’s closest advisor, leave the temple with two of his bodyguards. They rode away toward the palace.”
She turned to face Martin.
“Then I came to the second floor. It was empty, all the guests gone, the kitchen cold, the bar closed. I glimpsed you and the look on your face as you turned the last lock. So I followed you up the ladder to the roof.”
“Artie!”
Yes?
“He’s gone native!”
I gathered that, Artie said drily. So what do you want me to do about it?
“Stop him!”
With what? He’s gone and he’s blocked my tracker. I can only guess his location and anything I do to stop him will have to be big.
“Big enough to go into the histories?”
Yes.
“Damn it,” Martin swore.
We could lift early, Artie suggested.
“Leave him behind. Let him fend for himself.”
Yes.
Martin hesitated.
“No,” Martin said. He sat up straighter on the bench, then stood. He indicated Achadina.
“Have you finished your analysis?” Martin asked Artie.
What analysis?
“Please,” Martin said, exasperated. “How long have we worked together? How much of your if-then have I written? As soon as she started to tell us her story, you started an analysis. Is she lying or telling the truth?”
Every member of our staff, except for the few timeliners who have joined us, are from her tribe, Artie admitted. Cross-reference and genetic indicators.
“Outside?”
Most, if not all, of the neighborhood is related and part of her tribe. We are nestled in the middle of an invisible cocoon.
“You had no idea?”
How can I see something if I don’t know what to look for? Can you write the if-then for that?
Martin ignored the sarcasm and focused on more important matters.
“Do we need them?”
Looking back, they have been useful, Artie admitted. I can see several instances over the last thousand years where they have, essentially, saved us from having to go back and start over again.
“And it is damned hard to find good help these days,” Martin said in silent mode. He glanced at Achadina and, for the first time since the siege began, he felt better. Perhaps something good might come out of history, just once.
He turned to face her directly.
“The Stone Eagle flies tonight.”
She ducked her head, straightened and nodded.
“Holograph control override on,” Martin said in silent mode.
Override acknowledged. Ready, but not executed, Artie said, his voice formal and expressionless. Password?
“Raising elephants is so utterly boring, 1991.”
Accepted, Artie said. You now have control of the Stone Eagle image.
“Control in all visible frequencies? Infrared and ultraviolet? And as a time beacon?” Martin asked in silent mode.
Yes. Everything is waiting for you.
“Turn every signal off on my gesture. Prepare the third floor to separate, but do not separate yet,” Martin ordered Artie. He turned to Achadina and smiled. He spoke to Artie in silent: “Make this look impressive.”
He pointed up at the carving and closed his fist. The Stone Eagle image seemed to stir and twist, brighter and brighter, until it unfolded its wings and stared down at Martin and Achadina. Then the Stone Eagle opened its beak. It screamed and stretched and launched itself up and out, toward the hills and beyond until it faded and only the blank, ordinary, stone and mud brick of the pillar was left behind. The eagle flickered to the south and was gone. Achadina watched, wide-eyed.
“The Stone Eagle has flown,” Achadina whispered.
“Exactly.” Martin turned to her and spoke briskly. “Within the hour, General Assur will return here. He will walk through the door into the temple, shut the door, and become the priest Larry. He and I and the lesser priests will then empty the temple and be gone. So will the third floor of the temple. Within a short candle after that the walls will be breached and the enemy will take Nineveh.”
Achadina nodded slowly.
“King Sin-sar-iskun will die tonight, in a few hours, fighting the barbarians in his burning palace,” Martin continued, his voice sure and determined. He stared at her intently. “That is what all the records will say. I want all of your tribe to know what to say. There can be only one story that comes out of this night.”
“I understand,” Achadina said. “What about us? My people and my children?”
“Leave the temple now. Gather your family and your tribe,” Martin ordered. “You don’t have much time. Travel light. Get to the Halzi Gate before the enemy is inside.”
“What about the guards? No one can get in or out of the city. And the tribes outside.”
“Ask for the sergeant of the guard at the gate. The password is ‘Catalhoyuk.’ Tell him that word and the guards will open the gates and let you out. Once you get outside, get away from the walls, into the copse of trees down by the river. Wait there. I’ll meet you and get you through the tribes.”
“After that, what about the Stone Eagle? Where will you be? Where do we go?”
“The Stone Eagle is not just in one place, or one time,” Martin explained. “But for this time, for you and your people, head for Babylon, the temple district. Look high up on the walls on the streets where the temple district meets the market squares. When you see the Stone Eagle, knock on the door of that building.”
“You will take care of us?”
Seems fair, Artie said, diffidently.
“Yes,” Martin said firmly.
Achadina stood and bowed.
“Thank you.”
“Hurry,” Martin reminded her. “The candle is burning.”
Achadina hurried to the pillar, opened the door and slipped down the ladder.
That was either a very smart thing to do, or a very stupid thing to do, Artie said.
“Why don’t you go into the future and tell me which?” Martin asked sarcastically.
Artie laughed.
“Now, find me Larry…”
* * *
General Assur and his two followers tried to open the door to the temple. It was locked on the inside and refused to open.
“Artie?”
He’s pissed off, Larry, Artie said apologetically. He’s invoked personal danger.
“I override.”
Can’t do it, Artie said regretfully. Primary mission gives me the tie breaker. And my if-then agrees with Martin.
“So you’re going to leave me—us—out here to die?”
He hasn’t made up his mind, yet, Artie said. All I can tell you is that the beacon is shut down, the travellers are all gone. But the third floor is still attached.
“Then there is still a chance,” one of the lesser priests whispered.
The bundle slung across the back of General Assur’s horse began to move and struggle. One of the lesser priests moved closer. There was the sparkle nimbus of a Victorian stunner and the bundle went still.
“Martin, I couldn’t just let him die,” Larry said, his silent voice louder and pitched to carry. “I just couldn’t do it. I had to give him a chance to get away, to escape.”
He shook his head.
“And he wouldn’t take it. The stubborn son-of-a-bitch insisted that he was the king, damn it, and if the whole city had to starve and burn and fight to the death, then that was what was going to happen. That he was the king now and he was going to stay king until he died.”
Martin’s image flickered into sight in front of the door. He looked tired and determined. He folded his arms.
“And doesn’t that sound familiar?”
Larry gave him a crooked smile. He leaned forward, across the neck of his horse.
“Why, yes, it does. It reminds me of someone I met back near Gobekli Tepe, on the plains of the Garden of Edin.”
Martin winced at the memory.
“I do remember I saved your life that day,” Larry said, musingly.
“Not fair,” Martin protested. “I saved your life later.”
“Really?
Martin looked uncomfortable. He pointed at the body strapped to the back of Larry’s horse. “The king?”
“Yes,” Larry said, and absently reached back to pat the muffled figure. “You know the archeologists in the twentieth century never found his body in that burned-out palace? There was just that story he died fighting in the burning ruins.”
He paused and tried to look dignified.
“But, in these days, every king dies a heroic death,” Larry said. “Sounds to me like the kind of story that someone would—will—tell and write, no matter what. Particularly if it is repeated a few times over the next few years by people who claim they were actually there and managed to escape.”
Martin started to speak, then shut his lips tightly. A moment later he tried again.
“You have a plan, for once?”
Larry nodded, his expression slightly hurt.
“I always have a plan,” he explained. “They just don’t always work out.”
Martin rolled his eyes.
“He goes into our standstill room,” Larry said hurriedly. “A hundred years or so ought to be enough. It’ll be an instant to him but, by then, the Babylonians will have this area thoroughly pacified. And if he stays with the Eagle, he’ll be fine.”
“And if he leaves us, no one will believe him and he’ll be ignored as an antique hermit who’s been out in the desert too long,” Martin said thoughtfully. He studied Larry and the two lesser priests.
“Artie?”
It should work, Artie said, reluctantly. When we take Sin-sar-iskun out of stasis we’ll keep him on the first floor of whatever temple we set up. He doesn’t need to know anything about upstairs. If he asks questions, Larry can tell him it was magic, that he sacrificed a goat for him or something like that. That usually ends the discussion these days.
Martin thought for a moment, then nodded. He unfolded his arms.
“Fine,” he said to Larry. “I don’t like it, but I owe you. Artie, open the door.”
The main doors opened. The force fields shut down. Larry and the two lesser priests urged their horses through Martin’s image, into the temple. Martin turned to face Larry and others.
“And I expect you three to tell very convincing stories over the next hundred years!”
* * *
“—so I gave them the password and told them to meet us in Babylon.”
Larry laughed and shook his head.
“What’s so funny?” Martin asked. Larry shook his head again, irritated.
“I wondered why you let me get away with rescuing the king. You were feeling guilty about rescuing Achadina and her tribe!”
He’s right, Artie added.
Martin opened his mouth, then shut it. He knew Larry and Artie were probably right.
“Well, it’s too late to do anything else now,” Larry said, regretfully.
“You’re not very upset with me,” Martin said, puzzled. Larry shook his head.
“You had to make a decision. You made it. What am I going to do now? You want me to risk going back and ending up in another timeline? I don’t think so. So my only choice would be to stay here and make sure they all die on the road,” Larry said distastefully. He looked back at Nineveh, a thousand feet below them and a dozen miles behind, clearly outlined and engulfed in flames as the enemy poured through the gates and into the city.
“And I’m tired of killing.”
Martin nodded. Long ago he had given up trying to remember all the faces, back over all the long years. Sometimes they still came to visit him in his dreams but even then they were mainly faceless blanks. Artie had all of Martin’s memories stored, but Martin never asked for them.
“You met Achadina and her tribe got through the gate? You met them by the river?”
“Yes,” Martin said.
“Hvakhshatra was there?” Larry asked, curious.
“Call him Cyaxares. It’s easier on my throat. And, yes, I met him there.”
“You made a deal?”
“Yes,” Larry nodded. “Achadina’s people brought their families, but no weapons. Cyaxares gave them free passage to the south after his men made sure they didn’t carry anything valuable. I gave him an extra bag of gold to make the deal go through. When the tribe was safely gone, we opened the gates and let his army inside.”
Larry’s face twitched. He looked back at Nineveh one more time, closed his eyes, then opened them and turned away. Artie closed the image.
“Tell me again, why this had to happen,” Larry said bitterly. “Tell me again why they all had to die. Tell me again about your Babylonian steles and your Roman scrolls and your Bible.”
They moved south, safely above the ground.
“History sucks,” Larry said.
“I know.”
* * *
“So, what’s next? You’re the historian.”
“We split up, I’m afraid,” Martin said. “The newcomers are going to have to handle the groundwork for some of the big ones coming up. And even the whole thing for some of the minor events.”
Larry frowned.
“I’m not sure I like that.”
Martin shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter if you like it,” he said. He focused intently on Larry. “Things are changing. More people, more technology, more history. More opportunities for things to go right or go wrong. It’s not like Gobekli Tepe or Stonehenge or Carnac any more, with history depending on just one pivot point. Now we can’t be in just one place, at one time, to oversee and make things go right.”
Martin gestured and a world map appeared on the wall.
“You get Babylon. Get Achadina and her family and tribe settled in. They may be useful in the future,” Martin said. “I’m going to Wangcheng.”
“Confucius?”
Martin nodded.
“I’ve always had a weakness for his philosophy. And he’ll be born soon.”
“The others?” Larry asked and tipped his head back toward the timeliners.
“Pick someone you like to set up in Ecbatana,” Martin said. “Your Babylonians and their Medes are going to have an interesting century together. You might as well work with someone you like.”
“Where else?”
“Someone stubborn but not too bright for Cahokia, Illinois. It’s time for the mound-builders to get started on that big pile of dirt.”
“And we need someone for Miletus to make sure Anaximander gets born and Pythagoras gets started on the right track. Then there’s India and the mahajanapadas and, eventually, Buddha. And, of course, Egypt. We have to make sure the pharaoh funds Necho’s expedition.”
“Damn,” Larry said. He shook his head and stood. He looked ahead at the darkness.
“I need some sleep. Wake me when we get to Babylon and the new temple.”
He stepped out of the control room. Martin shut the door behind him.
“Well?”
Well, what?
“You can’t really need that much re-programming.”
Yes, I ran the DNA sequencing on Achadina and the rest of the staff and the neighborhood.
“And?”
Well, her family has been following the Stone Eagle for over the last thousand years, Artie said uncomfortably.
“And Larry and I are men with an ordinary need for emotional attachments. Larry might be gay, but I’m not. Which, I am uncomfortably reminded, means that there have been a number of times over the centuries when I might have had too much to drink. There are times I remember waking up, with a hangover, and I was not alone in my bed.…”
Yes.
“How much and how many?” Martin groaned.
Nothing that would cause any kind of genetic nastiness, Artie hurried to emphasize. You have been very good about distributing your favors. But, yes, it seems you are also part of Achadina’s tribe. An elder, you might say. As for Achadina, well, if she ever calls you great-great-great-grandfather, just nod and smile.…