Time's Eye

by Arthur C. Clarke

  Alexander himself spoke little. He sat on his throne with his head propped on one fist, eyes half-lidded, occasionally looking up with that odd, head-turned, beguiling shyness. He left the conduct of the meeting largely to Eumenes, who struck Bisesa as a very smart cookie, and to Hephaistion, who would interrupt Eumenes, seeking clarification or even contradicting his colleague. It was obvious that there was a lot of tension between Eumenes and Hephaistion, but perhaps Alexander was content for these potential rivals to be divided, Bisesa speculated.

  Now the discussion turned to the meaning of what had happened to them all—how history could have been chopped up into pieces, and why.

  The Macedonians did not seem as awestruck as Bisesa had naively imagined. They had absolutely no doubt that the time slips were the work of the gods, following their own inscrutable purposes: their worldview, which had nothing to do with science, was alien to Bisesa's, but it was easily flexible enough to accommodate such mysteries as this. They were tough-minded warriors who had marched thousands of kilometers into strangeness, and they, and their Greek advisors, were intellectually tough too.

  Alexander himself seemed entranced by the philosophical aspects. "Can the dead live again?" he murmured in his throaty baritone. "For I am long dead to you... And can the past be restored—old wrongs undone, regrets wiped away?"

  Abdikadir murmured to Bisesa, "A man with as much blood on his hands as this King must find the notion of correcting the past appealing..."

  Hephaistion was saying, "Most philosophers view time as a cycle. Like the beating of a heart, the passing of the seasons, the waxing and waning of the Moon. In Babylon the astronomers assembled a cosmic calendar based on the motions of the planets, with a Great Year that lasts, I believe, more than four hundred thousand years. When the planets congregate in one particular constellation, there is a huge fire, and the 'winter,' marked by a planetary gathering elsewhere, marked by a flood... Some even argue that past events repeat exactly from one cycle to the next."

  "But that notion troubled Aristotle," said Alexander—who, Bisesa recalled, had actually studied under that philosopher. "If I live as much before the fall of Troy as after it, then what caused that war?"

  "But still," Hephaistion said, "if there is something in the notion of cycles, then many strange things can be justified. For instance, oracles and prophets: if time cycles, perhaps prophecy is as much a question of a memory of the deep past as it is a vision of the future. And the strange mixing of times we endure now seems much less inexplicable. Do you agree, Aristander?"

  The old seer bowed his head.

  So the conversation continued, rattling between Alexander, Hephaistion and Aristander, often too rapidly for the creaky chain of translators to keep up.

  Ruddy was entranced. "How marvelous these men are," he whispered.

  "Enough philosophy," said Eumenes, practical as ever. He challenged the meeting about what they should do next.

  Captain Grove replied that he had a proposal. The British officer had brought along an atlas—a rather antiquated thing, even by his standards, from a Victorian schoolroom—and he now displayed it.

  The Macedonians were familiar with maps and mapmaking. Indeed, throughout his campaigns Alexander had brought along Greek surveyors and draftsmen to map the lands he explored and conquered many of them barely known to the ancient Greek world he came from. So the Macedonians were intrigued by the atlas, and crowded around the little book excitedly. They were intrigued by the quality of the printing, the regularity of the type and the pages' bright coloring. The Macedonians seemed to have little trouble accepting that the Mediterranean-centered world they knew was only a section of the planet, and that the planet was a sphere, as predicted by Pythagoras centuries before Alexander's time. In fact Aristotle, Alexander's tutor, had written a whole book about the notion. For her part Bisesa was amused by the great swaths inked in pink, to show the territories of the British Empire at its zenith.

  At last Alexander, in some exasperation, demanded that the atlas be brought up to his throne. But he was dismayed when the outline of his empire was sketched on a whole-Earth map. "I thought I had made a mighty footprint on the world—but there is so much I never even saw," he said.

  Using the atlas, Captain Grove said that his proposal was that the forces, combined, should make for Babylon.

  Abdikadir tried to explain about the radio signals picked up by the Soyuz. This was predictably baffling, until Ruddy and Josh hit on happy metaphors. "Like the sound of inaudible trumpets," Ruddy said. "Or the flash of invisible mirrors..."

  Abdikadir said, "And the only signal we have found came from here." He pointed to Babylon. "There is surely our best chance of determining what has happened to us, and to the world." All this was transmitted to Alexander.

  Babylon struck chords with the Macedonians too. There had been no news from Macedon or anywhere else beyond the Indus valley for many days now—and nor had the British received any messages from their own time. There was the question of where they should settle, if no news was forthcoming. Alexander had always planned to make Babylon a capital of an empire that might have stretched from the Mediterranean to India, united by sea and river routes. Perhaps even now that dream might be achievable, even with the resources the King had at hand, even if the rest of the world he had known had vanished.

  For all these reasons the best path seemed clear. As the consensus emerged Ruddy was thrilled. "Babylon! By God—where will this adventure not take us?"

  The meeting quickly got down to detailed questions of timetables and logistics. The light beyond the tent grew dimmer, circulating servants brought more wine and the assembly slowly grew more raucous.

  When they could get away from the Macedonians, Josh, Abdikadir, Ruddy and Bisesa gathered.

  Bisesa said, "We'll have to leave something for Sable and Kolya, in case they ever make it here." They discussed markers such as big stone arrows on the ground, cairns with messages, even leaving radios for the stranded cosmonauts.

  "And are you happy," said Abdikadir, "that we are throwing in our lot with Alexander and his crew?"

  "Yes," said Ruddy immediately. "Aristotle taught these fellows openness of mind and heart, and a curiosity about the world. Alexander's journey was as much an exploration as an expedition of conquest—"

  "Captain Cook with a fifty-thousand-man army," Abdikadir mused.

  "And surely," Ruddy said, "it was this very openness that enabled them to accept the customs of unfamiliar peoples—and so to weld an empire that, if not for the untimely death of Alexander, might have endured for centuries, and advanced civilization by a thousand years."

  "But here," Josh said, "Alexander isn't dead..."

  Bisesa was aware that Alexander was watching them. He leaned back and murmured something to the eunuch, and she wondered if he had heard what they said.

  Ruddy finished, "I can think of no finer legacy than to have established a 'British Empire' in Asia and Europe two thousand years or more before its time!"

  "But Alexander's empire," Josh said, "had nothing to do with democracy or Greek values. He committed atrocities—he burned Persepolis, for instance. He paid for each section of his endless campaign with the loot from the last. And he spent lives like matches—perhaps three quarters of a million, by some estimates."

  "He was a man of his time," said Ruddy, stern and cynical as if he were twice his age. "What can you expect? In his world, order derived only from empire. Within the empire's borders you had culture, order, a chance at civilization. Outside there were only barbarians and chaos. There was no other way to run things! And his achievement endured, even if his empire did not. He spread the Greek language from Alexandria to Syria like jam over toast. When the Romans pushed east they found, not barbarians, but Greek-speakers. If not for that Greek legacy, Christianity would have had a hard time spreading out of Judea."

  "Perhaps," Abdikadir said, grinning. "But, Kipling—I'm not a Christian!"

  Captain Grove joi
ned them. "I suspect our business is done," he said quietly. "I'm jolly pleased we came to such a quick agreement, and it's remarkable how much we hold in common. I suppose nothing fundamental has changed in two thousand years when it comes to carting an army around the place... But look here: I think the gathering is starting to degenerate a bit. I've heard about Alexander and his debaucheries," he said with a rueful grin, "and much as I'd rather give it a miss I fear it would be politic of me to stick around, and do a little getting-to-know-you with these chaps. Don't worry; I can handle my wine! My lads will stay on too—but if you want to slip away..."

  Bisesa accepted the excuse. Ruddy and Josh agreed to leave too, though Ruddy looked back with envy at the shimmering interior of the royal tent, where a curvaceous young woman dressed only in a floor-length veil was starting to dance.

  * * *

  Outside the tent Bisesa found Philip, Alexander's Greek doctor, waiting for her. Bisesa hastily summoned de Morgan. The factor was half-drunk already, but able to translate.

  Philip said, "The King knows you spoke of his death."

  "Ah. I'm sorry."

  "And he wants you to tell him how he will die."

  Bisesa hesitated. "We have a legend. A tale of what happened to him..."

  "He will die soon," Philip breathed.

  "Yes. He would have."

  "Where?"

  She hesitated again. "Babylon."

  "Then he will die young, like Achilles, his hero. That's just like Alexander!" Philip glanced back at the King's tent, where, judging from the noise, the debauch was gathering steam. He looked troubled, but resigned. "Well, it's no surprise. He drinks as he fights, enough for ten men. And he was nearly killed by an arrow in his lung. I fear he will not allow himself time to recover, but—"

  "He won't listen to his doctor."

  Philip smiled. "Some things never change."

  Bisesa made a quick decision. She dug into her survival pack, under her jumpsuit, and pulled out a plastic sheet of malaria tablets. She showed Philip how to pop the pills out of their bubbles. "Have your King take these," she said. "Nobody knows for sure how it happened. The truth was obscured, by rumor, conflict and false history. But some believe it will be of the sickness these tablets will prevent."

  Philip frowned. "Why do you give me these?"

  "Because I think your King is going to be important for all our futures. If he dies, at least it won't be this way."

  Philip closed his hand over the sheet of tablets, and smiled. "Thank you, lady. But tell me..."

  "Yes?"

  "Will they remember him, in the future?"

  Again, the strange dilemma of too much knowledge—compounded for Bisesa by long sessions with her phone as she had researched Alexander's story. "Yes. They even remember his horse!" Bucephalus had died in a battle on the river Jhelum. "More than a thousand years from now, in the land beyond the Oxus, the rulers will claim that their horses once all had horns on their heads, and were descended from Bucephalus, when Alexander passed there."

  Philip was enchanted. "Alexander had a headdress with golden horns made for Bucephalus in battle. Lady—if the King is ever close to death—"

  "Tell him then."

  When he had gone, she turned on de Morgan. "And you keep that to yourself."

  He spread his hands. "Of course. We must keep Alexander alive—if we are stuck here, he may indeed be our best hope of salvaging something of our future. But by all the gods, Bisesa! Why not sell those pills to him? Alexander is a thousand times richer than any other man of his time! What a waste..."

  Laughing, she walked away.

  24. The Hunt

  AT LAST THE BATTUE was ready.

  An enormous area of the steppe had been designated for the hunt, which was run as a military exercise. Army units were deployed in a great cordon, each with a full general in command. The beaters closed in toward the center, moving as if on maneuvers, with scouts in advance of the main body of troops, and flanking sections to either side. Trumpets and flags were used to communicate around this mass of troops, and once it was closed the circle was maintained with great precision.

  When the beating began, Genghis Khan himself led the imperial procession to a low ridge, which would serve as a good viewpoint. All the Golden Family were required to be present, along with Genghis's wives and concubines, chamberlains and servants. Yeh-lü traveled with the royal party, and brought Kolya, Sable and their interpreters with him.

  The scale of the exercise was startling. When he took his place at the summit of the ridge Kolya could see only a couple of military units, drawn up in formation, standards flying, horses restless, on the plain below; the rest were somewhere over the horizon. And he was stunned by the opulence of the food, drink and other hospitality laid on for the royal party.

  While they waited for the beating to be completed the Golden Family were kept amused by falconry displays. One man brought forward a mighty eagle, perched on a massive hawking glove. When the bird stretched its wings, their span was wider than the keeper was tall. A lamb was released, and the bird lunged with a ferocity that dragged the keeper off his feet, to the hilarity of the royal party.

  The falconry was followed by horse races. Mongol races were conducted over kilometers, and only the finishing stages were visible from Kolya's position. The child jockeys, surely no older than seven or eight, rode their full-sized mounts bareback and barefoot. The riding was ferocious, and the finishes, masked by a billowing cloud of dust, were close. The Golden Family threw gold and jewels at the victors.

  As far as Kolya was concerned, all this was another example of the Mongols' mixture of barbarity and vulgar ostentation—or, as Sable put it, "These people really don't have any taste." But Kolya could not deny the calm aura of Genghis Khan himself.

  Militarily disciplined, politically astute, single-minded and incorruptible, Genghis Khan had been born the son of a clan chief. He was called Temüjin, which meant "smith"; his adopted name meant "universal ruler." It took a decade of fratricidal conflict for Temüjin to unite the Mongols into a single nation for the first time in generations, and he became "the ruler of all tribes who live in felt tents."

  Mongol armies consisted almost entirely of cavalry, highly mobile, disciplined and fast-moving. Their fighting style had been honed over generations in hunting and warring across the plains. For the sedentary nations of farms and cities around the fringe of the steppe, the Mongols were difficult neighbors, but they weren't exceptional. For centuries the great land-ocean of Asia had spawned armies of marauding horsemen; the Mongols were just the latest in that long and bloody tradition. But under Genghis Khan they became a fury.

  Genghis Khan began his campaigns against the three nations of China. Rapidly growing rich on plunder, the Mongols next turned west, assailing Khwarezm, a rich and ancient Islamic state that stretched from Iran to the Caspian Sea. After that the Mongols pushed on through the Caucasus into the Ukraine and Crimea, and struck north in an outrageous raid on Russia. By the time of Genghis Khan's death, his empire, built in a single generation, was already four times as extensive as Alexander's, and twice as large as Rome's ever became.

  But Genghis Khan remained a barbarian, his only purpose the empowerment and enrichment of his Golden Family. And the Mongols were killers. Their ruthlessness derived from their own traditions: illiterate nomads, they saw no purpose in agriculture, no value in cities save as mines of plunder—and they placed no value on human life. This was the creed applied to each conquest.

  Now Kolya had been magically transported to the heart of the Mongol empire itself. Here, the benefits of the empire were more apparent than in history books written by descendants of the vanquished. For the first time in history Asia had been united, from the boundaries of Europe to the South China Sea: the tapestries that adorned Genghis's tents combined Chinese dragon designs with Iranian phoenixes. Though contact would be lost after the Mongols' empire decayed, myths of eastern nations were replaced by memory—a memory that woul
d one day inspire Christopher Columbus to strike out across the Atlantic Ocean, seeking a new route to Cathay.

  But in the overrun lands the suffering was vast. Ancient cities were erased, whole populations slaughtered. Compared to the human misery Kolya was able to perceive, even in the pavilion of Genghis Khan himself, the benefits of the empire seemed of little worth indeed.

  But Sable, he saw clearly, was drawn to the Mongols' rapacious glamour.

  At last the beating troops appeared over the horizon, yelling and crying, and converged on the hunting ground. Runners stretched ropes between the army groups, making a cordon. Cornered animals lumbered or raced to and fro, dimly visible in the great cloud of dust they raised.

  Kolya peered into the dust clouds. "I wonder what they've caught. I see horses—asses maybe—wolves, hyenas, foxes, camels, hares—they are all terrified."

  Sable pointed. "Look over there."

  A larger shape loomed through the dust. It was like a great boulder, Kolya thought at first, a thing of the earth, much taller than a human being. But it moved massively, immense shoulders working, and curtains of rust-brown hair shimmered. When it raised its head, he saw a curling trunk, spiral tusks, and he heard a peal like a Bach trumpet.

  "A mammoth," he breathed. "Genghis's hunters, crossing the time slips, have trapped more than they bargained for—it is the dream of ages to witness this. If only we had a camera!"

  But Sable was indifferent.

  A little stiffly, Genghis Khan mounted his horse. He rode forward, with a couple of guards to either side. It was his privilege to make the first kill. He took position not twenty meters below Kolya, and waited for the prey to be shepherded to him.