by Jerry Dubs
Before he could say more Brianna returned with a tall glass filled with water. Ice cubes tinkled against the glass. “I added some ice,” she said.
Standing beside him now, Tim saw that she was his height. She was wearing a white smock over a mint colored T-shirt and blue jeans. When she smiled at him, Tim thought she looked more Egyptian than he had first thought. Her face and nose were broad, her eyes large and wide set, her forehead somewhat flat. She looked vaguely familiar to him, like someone who would not be out of place in the Two Lands. Except for her green eyes.
He accepted the water from her and heard a chair scrape behind him.
“Let’s get a look at this little darling,” Akila said, turning to lead them to an examination room.
***
After the examination Brianna insisted on carrying Maya when they went back to the clinic office. “We only see college kids in here. Nobody even close to this cute,” she said by way of explanation.
“You can go back to the examination room, Tim, and grab a nap while I run this blood work,” Akila said. “I’ll wake you as soon as I know anything.”
Tim shook his head. He didn’t plan to let Maya out of his sight.
“I’m fine. I’ll just wait here with Brianna and Maya.”
Akila nodded and started down the hallway.
“You’ll check her urine and stool?” Tim called after her. Akila raised a hand in response.
“While the blood is spinning,” she answered over her shoulder as she walked away.
“Spinning?” Tim asked Brianna.
“She’ll put the blood in a centrifuge. It separates it into plasma and the red blood cells,” Brianna explained.
“Oh,” Tim said. Then he turned to the glass cabinets. “What about something for her fever?” he asked.
“There’s some Motrin up there. I’m sure we can give her that,” she said as she carried Maya across the room.
Awakened by the movement, Maya called for her father.
“Yes, Maya, I’m right here,” Tim said.
Maya tried to straighten up in Brianna’s arms. Tim took her and brought her face close to his. “You’re OK, Maya. This nice woman is going to give you something to make you feel better.”
“Where’s mommy?” Maya said.
“She’s home, Maya.”
“I want mommy.”
“I know,” Tim said.
Raising her head weakly, Maya looked around the well lit room. “Is it morning?” she asked.
Tim brushed her head and kissed her. “No, Maya. It is still night-time.”
Maya looked at him and then buried her face against his shoulder.
Standing by the cabinet with a blister pack of pills, Brianna was staring at Tim. He glanced at her and then laid his head against Maya’s.
“We’ll get you all better and back to your mommy,” Brianna said sweetly as she punched a tablet from the pill pack. She broke the tablet in half and brought it to Tim. “The lights have her confused,” she said, handing Tim the pill.
“Thank you,” he said in ancient Egyptian as he took the pill.
“You’re welcome,” Brianna said. Suddenly her eyes grew wide when she realized what she had done.
“You understood Maya. You understand me,” Tim said in ancient Egyptian.
Brianna looked to the floor without answering.
“How? That isn’t possible.” In full panic, Tim backed to the doorway. He felt air behind him and turned. Akila was standing there. She looked from Tim to Brianna.
“What happened?” she asked.
Holding Maya with both arms, Tim tried to shoulder past her.
Akila put a hand on Tim’s arm and said urgently, “Stop, Tim. Just stop!” She looked at Brianna who frowned and mouthed, “Sorry.”
Leaning close to Tim, Akila said forcefully, “I don’t know what just happened, Tim, but if you leave here Maya will die.”
Time Gone Awry
Twisting past Akila, Tim backed into the hallway, his feet and heart telling him to run out of the building, through the dark, unfamiliar streets and into the desert. But he hesitated.
Remembering little Prince Nebmakhet’s death, Tim knew that Akila was telling him the truth. He had suspected that Maya’s life was in danger. That was why he had persuaded Ahmes to paint the symbols on the tomb wall, that was why he had pushed against the false doorway and that was why he had risked being exiled in a future where he no longer belonged.
“She’s infected with blood flukes, Tim,” Akila said. “They will fill her liver, her bladder and her kidneys and they will kill her. I’ve never heard of or read about an infection this rampant.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense, parasites don’t want to kill their hosts.”
Seeing Tim’s frightened face, she arrested her speculation and said, “I’m sorry, Tim. It sounds worse than it is.” She approached him and gently laid a hand on his arm. “You have to trust me, Tim. It’s why you came here, right, to get help for Maya? I am that help.”
He pulled away from her, his mind tying together everything that had happened: The severed lock at the tomb, finding a doctor with a disabled car conveniently waiting outside the Saqqara parking lot, an unpaid intern, who happened to speak a language that had been dead for thousands of years, working at the clinic this night.
There was only one conclusion.
“You knew I was coming, didn’t you? You were expecting me. You didn’t have a flat tire, you were waiting out there by the tomb, weren’t you?” he said.
Ignoring his question, Akila said, “Tim, flukes are microscopic, living worms. Each of them lays thousands of eggs a day. They are filling her bladder because she can’t pee them out quickly enough. Unless we do something they will turn the soft tissue hard and she will die. Please listen to me. We don’t have time for long discussions. Let me give her some medicine, then we can talk.”
Tim closed his eyes and tried to focus on Akila’s words and Maya’s needs. He needed to act on rational thinking, not unnamed fears.
He pictured Meryt’s worried face, he remembered Prince Nebmakhet’s weakened body and the boy’s bravery as he accepted the primitive healing attempts of the doctors and priests, and he saw King Sekhemkhet’s anguished face as he held his dying son.
“Tim, please let me save Maya,” Akila said softly.
Tim looked down at his weakened daughter and nodded agreement.
***
“I’ll just be a minute,” Akila said. “I don’t have any Praziquantel here. I’ve never had to prescribe it but I know I have it in the pharmacy.”
She looked at Brianna and Tim.
Tim was standing beside the desk holding Maya. Brianna was standing across the room by the hallway that led to the examination rooms, her head tilted down, her eyes looking cautiously up and across the room at Tim. “I can go get it,” she offered.
“No, I can’t give you the pharmacy keys, you aren’t a doctor.” Akila paused. “Are you two going to behave?” she asked. “Don’t make me send you to time-out corners,” she said with mock sternness, trying to defuse the tension.
“Please hurry,” Tim said in ancient Egyptian, testing Akila, watching her reaction.
She shook her head and smiled. “Brianna?”
Brianna nodded. “I know,” she answered.
Akila sighed and then hurried out of the room.
As Akila’s footsteps echoed down the corridor, Tim walked over to Brianna and asked, “What do you know?”
“That she’ll explain everything to you.”
“Like why you happened to be working here so late tonight? How her car got a flat tire by the Step Pyramid? How you understand ancient Egyptian?”
Brianna turned away from Tim and walked over to the bulletin board. “She’ll explain everything. It’s only right that she’s the one,” she said.
Tim walked closer to her and studied her. She had her back to him, her head tilted down. She had wide shoulders beneath her white smock – the shoulder
s of a farmer, not royalty, he thought – and full hips pulling her jeans taut – child-bearing hips, he thought. Then he shook his head, embarrassed that he was assessing her as a physician from ancient Egypt.
He tried to look through his ancient prejudices and past his fears so that he could see her how she was here in this time and place. In the Two Lands she would have been a mother by this age with several children – if she had survived childbirth, he thought. Here and now she was a college student, her future ahead of her, decisions about jobs, partners and children delayed, perhaps to an age that many women in the Two Lands never saw.
In the Two Lands she already would have witnessed births and deaths, seen friends and family with debilitating illnesses or crippling injuries. Here she would see censored violence on the news or Hollywood mayhem contrived to frighten safely like a roller coaster ride.
Taking a deep breath he told himself to be calm. He didn’t think he had anything to fear from Brianna or Akila. And, he told himself, there must be an explanation for what had happened to him so far and there must be an innocent reason that she understood his ancient language. Perhaps something like the Rosetta Stone had been discovered for the spoken language.
Brianna was still turned away from him as she looked over the postings on the board. He suspected that she was just trying to avoid saying anything that might upset him. Touching her shoulder he started to say, “I’m sorry, Brianna, I know that ... ”
He stopped as his eyes saw the calendar.
“No,” he said, “that can’t be right.”
“What?” Brianna asked.
“That, the calendar.”
Brianna shrugged. “What about the calendar?”
He looked again at the calendar. He was sure that he had been in the Two Lands for seventeen floodings. He had gone to Egypt in 2005. The math wasn’t hard. It should be 2022.
But the calendar showed the year as 2027.
“The hieroglyphs must have been wrong,” he muttered, his stomach turning icy.
He shook his head. Just a few hours ago he had stood in the darkness of Brian’s tomb comparing the hieroglyphs Ahmes had painted above the false doorway to those on the papyrus. He was sure they had matched. No, Ahmes hadn’t made a mistake, the hieroglyphs had been correct. Tim was sure; he had studied them as if his life depended on it. The symbols had matched those on the papyrus.
Yet the time portal hadn’t opened to a future that had run parallel to the time he had been gone. Somehow he had gained five years.
“Are you sure?” he asked desperately. “It’s 2027, not 2022?”
Brianna nodded her head. “Yeah. I graduated from high school in 2022. I hope it isn’t 2022, I don’t want to go through high school again.”
“No,” Tim said, the chill of fear spreading over him as he understood what the dates meant. “No!”
If the time portal had dropped him five years farther in the future, then there was no assurance that when he went back down into the tomb and back through the false doorway that he would return to the time he had left.
He might push against a stone wall that wouldn’t move.
The wall might swing open to a different era.
He might never see Meryt again.
Searching
Tim was still staring at the calendar when Akila returned. She glanced at Brianna who had walked over to the desk where she was watching Tim. He hadn’t moved for five minutes, standing in front of the calendar holding Maya, his head bent in thought.
When Tim turned to the sound of her footsteps, Akila saw that his face was ashen, his expression that of a man who had just learned that his wife had died. Touched by his grief, she crossed to him and pulled him into a gentle hug, careful to not disturb Maya.
“All will be well,” she whispered, although she knew otherwise.
She felt him shake his head against her. “Something went wrong and I don’t know if I can go home. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my family.”
“All will be well,” she repeated, meaning the words and wishing that they were true.
He shook his head and pulled away from her. “You can’t know that.”
Suddenly he froze.
When he had first passed through the time portal to the Two Lands seventeen years ago he had assured King Djoser that he would not be killed and that a seven-year drought would end. Tim had been confident of his prophecy because a few months earlier he had read a history of the king written almost five thousand years later.
He stared at Akila.
Was she telling him something that she knew because she knew his future?
“Maya will be fine, Tim,” Akila said.
His mind raced. Was she a time traveler? Had she visited the past and seen Maya grown to adulthood? He looked into her eyes, trying to read the truth there, but she just smiled a doctor’s smile of professional reassurance and turned her attention to the pill in her hand.
Breaking the long, scored tablet in half, Akila held out her hand. Half the pill lay in her palm. “This will kill the flukes. We’ll make sure she drinks plenty of water to flush her system, we’ll manage her fever and she will recover,” she said.
“Do you know this because you have seen it?” he asked, speaking in ancient Egyptian.
“Please speak in English, Tim,” she answered patiently.
She pulled the pill back and turned to Brianna. “Can you get a spoon please, Brianna? It might be better if we crush this in some water for Maya.”
“Sure,” Brianna said.
Akila waited a moment until the girl had left the office. Then squaring her shoulders, she told Tim, “The important thing is that Maya will be well, Tim. I can save her. I will save her.”
“It was done, so it will be done,” Tim said, repeating the words he had spoken to King Djoser in another time. He looked at her questioningly.
Akila started to speak, caught herself and then sighed.
“I made a promise to someone, someone who was, who is very important to me, Tim. I’m not trying to be mysterious, I just can’t explain everything, but eventually you’ll understand. I know this all seems strange to you, maybe even imperiling, but you aren’t in any danger here. Neither is Maya. Please believe me. I can save Maya. I am helping you all that I can.”
“Who did you promise? Who is this other person? How will I ever understand if you won’t tell me?” Tim asked.
“I can’t tell you,” she answered.
Studying her face he saw only kindness and concern. He wondered if what he was seeing was what he hoped to see or if he was seeing the truth. He looked down at Maya. He had come here to help her, to save her life. He was certain that Akila and Brianna had expected him which meant that they somehow knew he would be traveling through time to this moment and place.
But that isn’t possible, he thought. I am the only one who knew I was coming here. Just me and Ahmes. And I thought I was traveling to the year 2022 not 2027.
He shook his head to clear it. What mattered was that he was here and Akila said she would save his daughter. He looked up at Akila and asked, “You’re sure that she will recover?”
“These pills will kill the flukes.” Akila opened the cabinet and retrieved a box of Motrin. “These will control her fever and help with the pain,” she said.
***
After Akila gave Maya the medicine she and Brianna set up two cots in one of the examination rooms.
“You can sleep here the rest of the night,” Akila said. “I’ll be back at nine.”
Tim looked at Brianna.
“I’ll be out there,” she said, nodding toward the front office. “I’m pulling an all nighter. Biology,” she said with mock disgust.
“Brianna is an excellent student,” Akila said, caressing the girl’s arm.
Brianna blushed and smiled at Akila. “There’s so much to learn,” she said shyly. “I have trouble staying focused. One semester I want to major in biology, the next semester it’s geology or languages or liter
ature or psychology. I even thought about computer programming. I just love computers. Archiving and libraries, that’s where everything is happening.”
Caught up in her enthusiasm she started talking faster.
“There’s so much confusion, though. It started with aggregators. We still have them and they’re useful, but most of them are like a club. You know, if you’re a lib or a gunthu or an archaist, there are ’gregs that have that focus. And that’s cool. And the news ’gregs, they don’t even pretend to be neutral, so they’re like a club, too.
“So what happened is that all these sites evolved into watering holes for people who think like each other. Then somebody got the idea of sampling all the watering holes to gather viewpoints from everywhere. You know, so you could be surprised by something you read instead of just reading stuff that confirms your own prejudices.
“But there was a problem with the facts. You know, you read a story about, oh, I don’t know,” she glanced at Maya, “birth rates or car accidents or wealth distribution and they cite studies or statistics, but if you actually read the study, it turns out the writer has just picked stuff that agrees with his idea and ignored the inconvenient stats.
“So these fact sites evolved. Programmers wrote algos to latch onto stats from stories, trace the link and check that the facts were both accurate and in context. Then they go back to the story and insert a relevant link. But then the original writer tries to scrub their story clean so ... ” Brianna stopped talking suddenly.
“I went off again, didn’t I, Akila?”
“A little,” Akila agreed with a quiet laugh. Turning to Tim she said, “Brianna believes there should be some mathematical way to determine the truth.”
Tim nodded agreement. “I’d like to think there is a universal truth.” As he turned to carry Maya to a cot, he paused. “After I put her to bed, would you mind if I come back and take a look at some of those, what did you call them – ’gregs? I think I need to catch up on things.”