Previously in The Plot to Save Socrates



Sierra Waters, a graduate student in 2042 New York City, is given an unusual manuscript by her mentor Thomas O'Leary, who soon after disappears. The manuscript is a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates receives a visitor after Crito on the eve of Socrates's death - a man who claims to be from the future and offers Socrates a chance to escape the hemlock that won't change history: a clone of Socrates will be given the hemlock, so Socrates can escape to the future. Sierra is not sure what to think of this manuscript, but she and her boyfriend Max go off to London in search of Thomas. There they discover a room with chairs which can travel through time, as explained to them by William Henry Appleton, the great 19th-century American publisher, who has used such a chair to travel to the future. Sierra and Max travel to Londinium 150 AD, where Sierra to her horror sees Max attacked and killed by Roman legionaries. She goes to Alexandria, where she meets Heron, the enigmatic ancient inventor, and his student Jonah. Sierra is now attempting to save Socrates - in the way indicated in the manuscript - as much as she is looking for Thomas, and her travels take her to Phrygia (later Asia Minor) in 404 BC, and the bed of Alcibiades, Socrates's beloved student. Alcibiades, who in our history is killed by Spartan mercenaries when in bed with a concubine, is saved from this fate when Heron arrives with legionaries minutes before the mercenaries arrive, and awakens Alcibiades and Sierra. In the ensuing escape and aftermath, Sierra and Alcibiades fall in love, and Heron enlists them in the plot to save Socrates which he is now traveling through time to set in motion. But Sierra and Alcibiades gradually come to realize that Heron - or some future version of himself - is trying to kill them. In the end, Sierra not Heron rescues Socrates and takes him to 2042, where Socrates meets with Thomas, who has reappeared and is thrilled to see the philosopher. But Alcibiades is injured in the rescue and he and Sierra are separated. Desperate to find him, Sierra goes to Alexandria, 410 AD, where she has reason to think Alcibiades may have gone, and where she takes on the identity of Hypatia, who in our history was killed by fanatics in 415 AD.


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