by Ian Andrew
“What’s that?”
“That Heinrich, is a gift courtesy of the struggle for women’s equality.”
“What?” he swivelled to face her.
“My access card didn’t work on Monday. So I was given a temporary one and they sent mine back down to me when it was fixed. I should have returned this but Franci scared away the young soldier before I had a chance.”
He looked puzzled, “Scared away?”
“Don’t ask. But what with the rest of this week being a blur I forgot about it. I just found it in my drawer when I went to get my sweeteners.”
“That’s nice, but it doesn’t help. It’s only a temp swipe with your details on it. You can’t swipe in twice with the one set of details.”
“Mmm, yes I’d agree that would normally be the case. But, my friend Dieter gave me this and he didn’t want to delay me whilst he coded a temp one. He also trusts me because we’re friends. So he just gave me one of the security detail’s cards.”
Heinrich had been halfway through taking a drink from his cup. He held the position like he had been frozen. Slowly he put the cup back down and turned to her.
“That’s a security detail pass card?”
She just nodded, then held her face towards him and winked. He leant over and kissed her.
They left their drinks and returned to the HPL’s door. Leigh swiped her card and keyed in her numeric code. She handed the security detail’s pass card to Heinrich.
“Be my guest,” she said.
“Why thank you.” As he swiped it the door registered a second authorised access request and clicked open.
She led him through to the far end of the lab and into the small hallway that led to the Thule room. As she put her hand out to open the opaque sliding doors he put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“No. Not at all, are you?”
“No.”
“Well then, that’s unanimous.” She breathed deeply, reached up and kissed him. As they parted again she said, “Heinrich, I’ve spent all my life working towards something. I believe you were sent to me to make that something happen. So no, I’m not sure but yes, we’re doing this and we’re doing it right now.”
They used Konrad’s Thule key and initiated the Window. When it reached stabilisation and hung motionless, the steady circular ring of purple light edging the flat silver disc, Leigh reached forward and entered the Berlin override code. “Well, I suppose we’re about to find out if this actually works.”
They both held their breath and the image on the screen blanked out.
“So far so good,” she said, “now have you decided which year to go for?”
Heinrich knew the place he needed to go to and the day and the time but none of the Gospels and none of the research conducted by the Archive’s staff had ever agreed on what year the incident happened. Most put it between 26 and 33AD. He knew when it was in relation to the heralding of Jesus as the Messiah by the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes but that didn’t help. No one could agree on what year that had happened in either. It was going to be a case of trial and error.
He pulled the papers out from his uniform jacket and set them on the console. He read from his notes, “The Gospel according to Caiaphas says, ‘When dusk reached the shores on the shortest day, He crossed over by boat to His home in Capernaum. One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up, and on seeing Him, implored Him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death; please come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will get well and live.’ And lo the Master said that he would come.’ Let’s just start at 21 December 26AD, 14:15 GMT, coordinates are 32 degrees 52 minutes 49.07 seconds north, 35, 34 and 28.6 east.”
She turned to a secondary keyboard and punched in the numbers, then adjusted a set of controls and flicked on various other switches. The lights in the room dipped.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“It’s a power drain. Other than theoretical testing, we’ve never tried to go this far back, or even a tenth of this far back. The power requirements are a bit of an unknown.”
The lights brightened, flickered, dipped and then brightened once more. They steadied but at a dimmer intensity than usual. The image on the far wall began to show, faded at first but then stronger. Eventually after a few minutes, the image stabilised and the lights in the room brightened a little more. They were looking down, almost vertically, onto a small jetty. Leigh panned around to the left and right and save for a lone child playing in the dirt of a track the scene was empty.
“It’s not it Leigh.”
“How do you know, we only just got here.”
“Because some of the other Gospels talk about a press of people waiting for Him on the shore.”
“Maybe He’s late? It’s still quite bright, perhaps the sunset times are a bit off.”
“No. Let’s go forward.”
She shut the Projection down and the lights in the room brightened back up. Heinrich watched as the Window spun down. “Why have you shut it down?” he asked her, concerned that something had gone wrong.
“We need to go forward a year, you said so yourself.”
“Can’t we just jump to the right time like you did for Reid?”
“It’s too big a gap. You can’t move an active Window more than twenty-four hours in a single jump. We’d have to wait for me to enter three hundred and sixty-five separate command sequences. It’s going to be quicker to do it this way.” She started to initiate the Window again and once more the lights in the room reacted but more intensely than the first time. He noticed the worried look on her face but left her to concentrate on entering the data. They went forward to 27AD. This time the scene was overcast, grey and fine sheets of rain poured down. Not even a lone child was visible.
As Leigh shut the Window down a light bulb at the far end of the room popped and went out. “This isn’t great.”
“What’s the problem?” he asked knowing that he was unlikely to understand it even when she told him.
“To initiate a Projection takes a lot of power. The further back the more power. One of the reasons it worked so well in Toronto was that we had a direct feed from the hydro stations at Niagara. But here, we draw from the substation that was built specifically for us up on the Isle but we’ve never drawn this type of load before. Everything is working at limit.”
“Can we continue?”
“Yes, for now. But I’m concerned that if we push it too much we could really screw things up.”
“Is this light dimming and surging going to be noticeable in the rest of the complex?”
“No, well, I don’t think so. No it shouldn’t be. We’ve got our own direct feed into the HPL and this room. It’s entirely separate from the rest of the complex. It had to be because of the extra load we pull.”
“Okay. Then let’s try again with 28AD.”
The lights steadied at a much dimmer level than normal as the image on the far wall stabilised. Once more they looked down onto a jetty but this time they were looking at a small crowd of people, maybe forty or fifty, waiting next to the shoreline. Leigh joined Heinrich, held his hand and they waited with them.
Chapter 45
“We should have brought the coffee in with us.”
He distractedly nodded his agreement. They had waited and watched the scene on the shoreline for twenty minutes and nothing of interest had occurred. Not that that detracted from what they were looking at or waiting on but they both knew the one thing that was going to be a problem was the failing daylight. There were no streetlights in 28AD Capernaum and the sun’s rays were fading fast. The astronomical data that Leigh had cross-referenced indicated they were in the full moon’s quarter but it would still make it extremely difficult to track people in the open.
Leigh wandered off to the left hand bank of consoles to check on the power levels and when she returned she was looking concerned. “Heinrich?”
&
nbsp; “Mmm?” he was transfixed by the imagery on the Projection. He had read about the period, studied the manuscripts and Gospels, researched and contemplated, been converted to the Turner Religion as he read them and now he was looking down on the actual place at the actual time.
“Heinrich!” she nudged him and he turned around and saw the concern etched on her face.
“What is it?”
“The power levels are borderline. I’m not sure how long the load can maintain itself.”
“Do you want to shut it down again and rest it?”
“No. You saw how much it draws to start up. It’s easier on the system to just let it continue playing forward. Shutting down and reopening could really mess things up. I’m just not sure how long we can keep an active Window open.”
He wanted to ease her worry but didn’t know what to say. The whole experience was overwhelming. He was about to reach out to hug her when there was a surge of noise from the speakers that connected to the Projection. The crowd had reacted to something outside of the Window’s view.
They waited a few more minutes and saw three small fishing boats approach the jetty. A number of people jumped from the boats, secured them and then formed a semicircle that gently eased the waiting crowd back. When all was still a figure, dressed in a simple robe, stepped from the last boat. Leigh grasped Heinrich’s hand and they watched as the crowd tried to surge forward. The semicircle held fast and then moved like a protective screen, encouraging the crowd back and allowing him to walk freely. Heinrich and Leigh were transfixed as they watched. She rested her head against his shoulder, “You’ve found Him Heinrich, you’ve found Him.”
“We found Him,” he said with an air of incredulity that it had worked.
“Yes we did,” she said and laughed.
“To be honest I really wasn’t sure it was possible. In all my studies this was the only time and place that I could track down. Even then we had to guess the year.” He was babbling and he knew it but the excitement he was feeling was like a current through him. He laughed with her and gestured up to the screen, “But now look at us!”
“We make a good team,” Leigh said and hugged him hard.
The crowd had moved back and divided to either side of the cobbled road. Likewise, the semicircle of protection split into two flanking lines and in the middle he strolled unhindered. Then a figure broke through and prostrated himself on the road. The Prophet helped him back up to his feet and they walked together.
“That’s Jairus, come to seek Him out,” said Heinrich. Leigh merely nodded. They were so transfixed that the people started moving out of the image. Leigh reacted first and sprinted back to the control for the tracking mechanism.
“Quick Heinrich, what direction are they moving, I need to track the Window.”
He assessed the image and estimated, “Track 035 degrees and don’t worry, they’re not going fast.”
Leigh slewed the Window too quickly, which in itself was no small effort given the time lag on its movements, and overshot the entire crowd.
“Ahh, nooo, don’t you dare do this to me.”
“It’s okay Leigh, no rush, they’re only ever going to walk for us here. Or at worst trot on a horse.”
She calmed her breathing and concentrated on the tracking mechanism. She centred the scene and found the Prophet again. Just as the image was refocusing he stopped and turned quickly and his face was lit by the last rays of the setting sun. She zoomed in to the maximum resolution and reorientated the Window. Both she and Heinrich gazed on the smiling face of a man in his thirties who looked handsome, confident, wise beyond his years and above all, kind. He had olive skin, relatively short, dark brown hair, a closely trimmed beard and moustache, high cheekbones, broad nose, high forehead and strong jaw. His eyes were alive and he radiated a warmth of expression that made both Leigh and Heinrich gasp.
They watched as he reached out to a woman in the crowd. As Leigh zoomed in further they began to hear the speech from the scene but she didn’t understand any of it.
Heinrich shook his head, “It’s too quick for me to keep up.”
“But we know what this is, don’t we?” she said it smiling through tears that spilled from her eyes.
“Yes, that old lady just reached out and touched the hem of His garment.”
“Dear God,” said Leigh and touched her forehead, heart and abdomen. Heinrich circled his heart with his right index finger. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve and asked, “Do you think the ones keeping the crowd away are the Disciples?”
“I suppose so, but this is early in the ministry. So at most there would be ten or twenty. How many do you count?”
“It’s difficult; the light is fading really fast. Hang on,” she paused the display and looked closely, “I can see thirteen, you?”
“Yep, same. Let it play forward.”
The Prophet laid his hand on the old woman’s head and then she was helped away by some of the Disciples, back to the main throng. Leigh tracked the procession as a group of men approached the crowd and called out. She tightened the focus as Jairus sank to his knees and wailed in despair. The Prophet waved his hand to indicate he wanted his path cleared and helped Jairus to his feet. They walked together towards a Roman style villa set in a clearing in the midst of a copse of trees to the west of a synagogue. The Prophet turned and stopped the crowd by holding his hand up. The Disciples moved forward again and formed what was almost a cordon around the house. Then the Prophet and Jairus went inside.
Leigh worked quickly at the console in front of her and the image spiralled down, went to black and then refocussed inside an empty hallway.
“Leigh?”
“I know, I know.” She moved the controls and entered into what appeared to be a sitting room illuminated by oil lamps and candles where women were talking together. Tracking forward and right she came across more women in another room that could have been a kitchen. Moving rapidly she overshot the house completely and ended up outside again.
“Fuck’s sake,” she swore under her breath but loud enough for Heinrich to hear.
“Not really the best time to be swearing, now is it?” he said in a light tone, trying to put her at ease.
She laughed nervously and twitched the tracking control involuntarily. The room that came into focus was quiet and dark save only for a single oil lamp that cast its flickering shadows over a small bed in the corner. Lying atop the bed was the still and peaceful body of a young girl. Leigh guessed she was about twelve and she wore the pallor of death. In the middle of the room, lit in profile by the lamp, the Holy Prophet and Messiah of the Turner Religion stood before the bed with his hands raised and his head bowed.
Leigh looked at Heinrich and could see the tension in his face and jaw. He was clenching his teeth and looked an equal mix of scared and awed. He breathed deeply a few times and his face transformed. He relaxed and looked serenely calm. He looked at her and said, “The years leave a mark Leigh.”
“Till the sun rises, Heinrich,” she replied.
Then he nodded and she flipped the microphones in the room to transmit.
Chapter 46
16:40 Tuesday 21st December 28 – Capernaum
“Morenu Rabenu, avadeicha anu. Nichlamnu midaber imcha.”
Heinrich spoke clearly and as slowly as his nerves would allow. He had learnt to read and write old Hebrew but speaking it was a whole different discipline. He paused and waited. Leigh was holding her breath looking up at the Projection screen and staring in wonder as the Prophet lowered his arms and looked around him. He turned away from the girl, raised his hands again and spoke,
“Al tiraoo yeladay. Yichalti leboachem. Atem osey shalom tzetzaey eloha. Milaoo berooach lemaan titen lachem kol. Haskitu leYeshayah, Kru oznechem, hazinu lekoli; Hatu ozen ushimu devari.”
There was a sudden loud noise like the rushing of wind through the Thule Room. It built rapidly and was so loud that Heinrich and Leigh put their hands up to cover their ear
s. But there was no wind. Just noise. Then it ceased as rapidly as it had started. Leigh yelled out with a sharp, shocked cry.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” Heinrich said as he looked round at her and then he also gasped. She was staring wide-eyed at him but around the top of her head, just above her hair and enveloping her like an aura were tiny tongues of flame. He saw a flicker of fire out of the corner of his eye and when he looked toward it he saw his own reflection in one of the console monitors. He had the same around him. He darted his eyes from his reflection to Leigh. As he watched, the flames faded and disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. He felt tears running down his cheeks but he also felt elated. Leigh looked radiant and yet he saw she was crying too.
“Fear not my children. I have awaited you. You are the peacemakers, the children of God. Be filled with the Spirit that will give you utterance. Know ye Isaiah’s prophesy, give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.”
They both looked up at the image of the Projection.
“I can understand you!” exclaimed Leigh.
“Of course little one. Know you not your prophecies? From Isaiah to Joel, the Lord has given the gift of tongues. It would be difficult to know the nations and the tribes and bring them together if Babel was destined to divide us.” He laughed in a light, carefree way that was instantly beguiling.
“I…I...” she looked to Heinrich for help.
“Be not afraid to speak for it is I who should quake. You have appeared from nowhere as a voice in my head alone.” His voice was melodic and light yet had gravitas and purpose.
“Teacher, does this mean you can understand us in our native tongue?” Heinrich asked.
“Of course. The Lord our God wants us to converse. For I have been told to expect your coming. But call me not teacher. Call me Yeshua.”
“You were told of our coming?” Leigh said in awe of the situation.
“Yes, as in a dream when I prayed on my own in the wilderness some days ago. The Lord our God said to expect a voice as if from angels in the spring that would speak to me in my winter. That I shall not see but yet I shall hear and they will tell me of despair and violence. A hell on our earth that they are living many lifetimes hence.”