Laughing Wolf

by Nicholas Maes

  There was a blast a couple of metres behind and the tunnel in their vicinity exploded with light. An E.D. had shot at them with its long-distance stunner. The track’s curve had removed them from its line of fire, but the drones would soon catch up.

  There. Ahead of them stood the start of a staircase, like the one they had descended near the Queen Street station. Carolyn quickly mounted the steps, with Felix following a few steps behind. Again the structure wobbled beneath them.

  “We’re halfway there,” cried Carolyn a minute later. Felix didn’t answer. He was saving all his breath for the climb. He couldn’t tell what was worse: his fiery lungs, his burning calves, or the feeling of dizziness as he spiralled upwards.

  “Halt!” a voice echoed from below. The E.D.s were at the foot of the staircase. Felix heard a high-pitched whine, a sign they were ascending in pursuit of the pair. Thank goodness for the spiral: it would slow them down.

  “I’m there!” Carolyn called, several metres above Felix. “And there’s a box with a key! I’m working the door open.…”

  “Halt!” a voice thundered from nearby. “You are in violation of Presidential Order 3214T566 …”

  “Shut up!” Felix gasped. “You’re just a machine!”

  But this machine was moving in on him, with others close behind. It was three metres away, two and a half, two.… A whistle sang out as it charged its stunner and … “The door’s open!” Carolyn yelled. “Watch it! It’s right behind you!”

  Felix could sense the E.D.’s presence — his hair was actually standing on end. He wasn’t going to make it. He could sense its stun-rod was about to make contact.…

  He dropped onto his chest. Jabbing backwards with his leg, he struck the lead drone behind him. The machine was lighter than he had expected and was knocked back several metres. It collided with the second E.D. and created something of a domino effect as each drone crashed into the one behind it.

  Taking advantage of this mess, Felix barrelled past the door. When the barrier closed, and the lock re-engaged, he practically sobbed with relief.

  His feeling of reprieve lasted all of a second. Mounted to a nearby wall was a screen featuring the president’s last speech. The sight reminded them — as if they needed reminding — that they were the very last humans to wander the planet. Despite their exhaustion, they stood and stumbled forward.

  Their mission was far from over.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Thermal reactor readings?”

  “Normal.”

  “Plasmic interphase?”

  “Normal.”

  “Temporal navigation signals?”

  “All are above 1500 megahertz, except the one in delta sector.”

  As Carolyn paused to make an adjustment, Felix glanced up from one of three screens before him and gazed outside a viewing port. After reaching the depot, they’d discovered lines of shuttles lying in “dry dock.” By moving cautiously, they’d managed to board one craft before the E.D.s had been able to “scope” them. Carolyn had a Class M license and, crippling the auto-drive, had piloted the craft to their destination. Within two hours of kicking the E.D. in the subway, they’d returned to the space station and the TPM.

  “Are you alright?” Carolyn asked.

  “Yes, of course,” he answered, his gaze still directed outside. The infinitude of space stared back at him, its immensity so breathtaking, yet inhumanly cold. This void would not have seemed so chilling had he been able to speak to his mother; unfortunately she’d left a tearful message on their Holo-port, explaining that their supplies were depleted and the colony was as good as doomed. This awful message was three months old.

  “Continue with the check list,” he insisted, returning to the task in hand.

  “Solar compression?”

  “Normal.”

  “Radiation shields?”

  “Engaged.”

  “Clavian vectors?”

  “Optimal. Wait. Particle plane 2A7 should be altered point zero three degrees.”

  “Portal exits?”

  “Energy deposits have been placed in two hundred and fifteen temples.”

  Not that they’d been able to relax. Their calculations had revealed the sun would reach a maximum output level within six-and-a-half hours of their arrival at the station; a delay would have required them to postpone another three days. Given the possibility of contracting the virus, they’d been forced to meet this very tight deadline.

  That left them with the TPM. It was complex and beyond their operational skills. Luckily, upon entering its central chamber, they had spied a flashing Holo-port that had screened a message from General Manes. Besides providing them with detailed instructions — in the unlikely event that they should return and attempt a second temporal projection — he had left a final message for his daughter. This was delivered after he’d held a scanner to his temple and, following the president’s example, neutralized his ERR.

  “My dearest Carolyn,” he had said, speaking with an effort, “for reasons I never called into question, I have endured the reduction of my emotional range. As a result, while I’ve always watched your development with joy, I have never been able to say how much you meant to me. It has been expressed through countless gestures, of course, but the feelings were never set into words. Now, in my final moments, I want to state for the record that you, as well as your mother, have always been my sun and moon and stars and oxygen. If I have any regrets, besides the failure of our mission, it is that I can’t address these words to you in person. Continue fighting if you’re still alive and pretend that I’m with you, cheering you on.”

  A few more words had followed, to the effect that he would blast his body into space, together with the other corpses on board, to reduce the chances of infection by the plague.

  “Infra-red pattern analysis?”

  “Normal.”

  “Geographical coordinates?”

  “Longitude fourteen degrees, twenty-nine feet, ten point zero two inches, longitude forty degrees, forty-five feet, zero point zero two inches. Ancient Pompeii.”

  “Pompeii? Why not Panarium …?”

  “Don’t you remember what the doctor said? How there are no known temples in this second Panarium? Pompeii is the closest entry point.”

  “Okay. The coordinates are confirmed. Temporal insert date?”

  “May 13, 71 BC, nine a.m. local time.”

  “May 13? That’s three days later than our last visit. Why…?”

  “The Romans will be fighting Spartacus’s forces. Both sides will be too busy to interfere with our plans.”

  “All right. You know best. That means we’re just about ready.”

  Rising from her console, Carolyn stretched. She was still wearing her jeans and sweatshirt, unlike Felix who’d changed into a new Roman outfit that he’d fabricated using the professor’s program. Announcing she would be back shortly, she retreated to a changing room.

  He stood and glanced outside again. He was thinking about their return from the past and their stop-off in that prehistoric era. It interested him that they’d been able to pause halfway to their destination. Perhaps this trick could be accomplished again. With a frown, he approached the chair that Carolyn had vacated and determined an additional set of coordinates. He just had time to punch these into the TPM’s flight log when she stepped back into the room.

  “Are you ready?” he asked casually, admiring the effect of her palla and handing her a pouch with cinnamon.

  “No. But that shouldn’t stop us.”

  They shook hands solemnly. To his surprise, Carolyn drew him close and squeezed him tightly. Wordlessly, she broke her embrace and they stepped into the TPM module. They triggered the ignition sequence via voice commands. The hidden circuitry started to hum, the plasmic interphase began to burble, the light was shifting to infrared and …

  They were part of the twenty-third century no longer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Felix blinked in the silvery sha
dows. He was recovering from the time projection and trying to get a fix on his position. Again they were in a narrow room, whose door was partly open and admitting streams of lights. The walls were of marble, as was the floor, and three statues were facing him — Minerva, Juno, and Jupiter. The air in the cella was dry and musty, and motes of dust were swirling about in an immaculate sunbeam.

  “We’re back among the savages,” Carolyn groaned. She was shaking her head and straightening her palla.

  “The sooner we find the flower, the sooner we leave.”

  They tiptoed to the exit. Determining the coast was clear, they left the chamber, crossed the stylobate, and descended three steps of travertine marble. Felix trembled visibly: they were standing in Pompeii.

  They were looking out over the ancient forum. There was a concentration of stalls to their left — parading meat, fruit, fish, and other wares. Farther down, an attractive square beckoned, bounded at its far end by a large assembly hall. In front of them were administrative buildings; on their right a basilica and a second ornate temple, this one belonging to the god Apollo. Half a mile off was the Tyrrhenian Sea, at the sight of which he had to smile.

  “What’s the joke?” Carolyn asked, as they cleared the temple’s steps.

  “It’s very strange. I’ve been here often and know the ruins well, and here they are in perfect condition. I would never have guessed the city was so beautiful.”

  “It is beautiful,” she admitted.

  “And it’s funny how some monuments haven’t been constructed yet, Eumachia’s house and Vespasian’s temple. And the sea is closer: the last time I was here — two thousand years from now — the water was three miles away from the city. Time travel has some very strange effects.”

  He led Carolyn to the south end of the Forum. Even as he admired the columns and stone of the buildings, he was surprised to see so few people about. Apart from the odd merchant, or the occasional cat, the city’s streets and buildings were empty, as if everyone were taking refuge from some threat.

  “It’s like the world we left,” Carolyn said. “Where is everybody?”

  “There are people here,” he answered, catching sight of a family through an open window. “Although in a hundred and fifty years, this place will vanish.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look behind you,” he said. “That volcano is Vesuvius. It’s scheduled to erupt in 79 AD and will bury Pompeii in a thick layer of ash.”

  “I’m glad I don’t know history; at least, I’m glad I can’t see people’s future.”

  “Believe me, I wish I couldn’t see it, either.”

  They had reached the Forum’s boundary and turned onto the Decumanus, the city’s main east-west road. Unlike Rome, where apartment blocks were common, the buildings here were two stories tall with balconies that were exploding with the season’s flowers. The road was wide and paved with flagstones that had been set in concrete. They passed a lovely fountain, too, whose water was supplied by a distant aqueduct — a feat of engineering that ran for sixty miles. And immediately past the fountain, they saw the public baths, a triple-arched structure that had been built to accommodate a crowd of hundreds.

  “Chick peas! Peanuts!” an old vendor shouted, spying the pair.

  “Salve, senex,” Felix greeted him. “Where are all your customers?”

  “Salve, domine. You are a stranger to these parts.”

  “You can hear it from my accent?”

  “And your question. You haven’t heard of Spartacus? How he commands an army as numerous as the grains of sand and treats all of Italy as his personal estate?”

  “And that’s why people are locked in their houses?”

  “Yes. But he will learn his lesson when General Crassus arrives — as early as tomorrow, I’ve heard. But why are you here? You would be safer up north.”

  “We’re looking for a man named Balbus. He lives in Panarium and —”

  “Balbus? Of Panarium? Domine, I’ve never met the man, but a peanut shell would hold his luck with room left over for the nut within. Surely there is no one whom the gods hate more. Why do you wish to visit him — even Spartacus and his slaves have left the scoundrel alone.”

  “We are curious to see a man of such misfortune.”

  “In that case, carry food with you, unless you’re prepared to eat the flowers in his fields. Indeed, you’d be wise to purchase my comestibles.”

  Felix nodded and ordered two large servings of chick peas. As the man spooned his wares into “cups” of plaited fig leaves, he directed them to Panarium. They had to leave Pompeii by the Stabiae gate and walk due south along the Via Popilia. At the 143rd milestone, a walk of eight hours, they would veer east on a via rustica for seven milia passuum. This secondary road would lead into Panarium, due south of which were Balbus’s fields.

  This said, the man handed them their chick peas. Felix gave him a generous pinch of cinnamon in return. The man’s jaw dropped and he sputtered his thanks. He also offered them some parting advice.

  “Be careful where you step. Spartacus is everywhere. There are some soldiers in the area, but their numbers are small and they can’t offer you protection. In other words, you could be walking to your death.”

  Thanking the man for his concern, the pair walked off along the Cardo Maximus, a central north-south avenue that ended in the Via Popilia.

  After passing two theatres and a gladiator barracks — all three structures had been abandoned — they reached the city’s walls and emerged into a field. They found the start of the Via Popilia, which was four metres wide and beautifully paved. Felix felt a thrill when his feet grazed its surface: it connected him to every road across the empire, a network that was eighty thousand kilometres in length.

  The pair walked aggressively for the next three hours, full of energy because they were heading toward their final goal. As fields and forests and craggy hills passed, they spied all sorts of animals that the noise from their footfall chased into the open: rabbits, mice, lizards, foxes, deer, and a snake with a zigzag dorsal pattern. Both were deeply impressed: the only place wildlife could be seen in their era was in the narrow bands of wilderness that were packed with tourists. Here, on the contrary, there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

  “There are no portals in Panarium,” Carolyn spoke, in an effort to dispel the emptiness around her. “And I guess that means we’ll have to return this way.”

  “It’s not our only route. Once we’ve found the lupus ridens, we can walk to Paestum, which lies farther south. There are several portals there that we can use.”

  “I get the idea you’re not so anxious to return.”

  “Are you crazy? Our world will die without the lupus ridens!”

  “And if our mission weren’t so urgent? Would you remain in the past?”

  “Do you think I’m in any way attracted to the violence, slavery, and utter disregard for human life?”

  “Yes.”

  Felix stopped walking. They were in a desperate hurry, but her statement went to the heart of his routines and raised a question that he had never quite answered. Why would anyone study the past? What good was served by examining the relics of half-baked populations that had sacrificed animals, enslaved their fellow man, fought neverending wars and believed the earth was flat? What was the attraction of such monstrous people?

  “They are us,” he finally spoke.

  “What?”

  “I much prefer our modern ways,” he explained. “But I want to understand their evolution. The Romans are part of the human family, and I study them the way I would examine my parents.…”

  “They’re not my family,” Carolyn snorted. “I have nothing in common with them.”

  “If there were no risk of a butterfly effect, do you think you’d end up hurting people or maybe killing them in self-defence?”

  “In a world like this? Sure. You would have no choice.”

  “So if our world were unstable, you would be as violent as these pe
ople.”

  “I don’t know.…”

  “And if you were rich but had no robot to wash dishes, wouldn’t you hire a human to do them? And if times were harsh, and the age’s morals were different, isn’t it possible you would own a slave?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m only saying we’re not that different from the Romans. Take away our ERR, our robots, and our cloning industries and you’d be left with people like Crassus or Pompey.”

  He pressed forward. With a shrug, Carolyn followed in his steps.

  They said nothing for the next half hour, as both were mulling his comments over, Felix no less than Carolyn. He was wondering if he’d said something profound or … imbecilic. His eyes roamed the countryside, which was hilly and uncultivated and threatened to overwhelm the road. A milestone passed — number 137 — when finally the stillness was broken: a band of legionnaires was mounting a hill.

  There was nothing calm about their appearance: they were wearing chain mail, helmets with prominent cheek-guards, a cingulum, or belt, from which strips of seasoned leather dangled, and caligae, or thick hob-nailed boots. Each was armed with a rectangular shield, a sword, and a menacing six-foot spear. There were twelve of them and they were marching in step, as if they were governed by a single mind. At the sight of their arms, Felix’s wound began to tingle.

  “Should we run?” Carolyn asked, remembering the soldiers who had tried to grab their cinnamon.

  “I don’t think so,” Felix answered, with some hesitation. He was thinking that if they fled from this patrol, they would have to abandon the road for the wilds and might end up getting lost. Besides, even from a distance he could tell these soldiers were nervous, because Spartacus could assail them at any moment. This meant that they would not waste time harassing two young citizens.

  The soldiers advanced, without checking their step. They were sweating profusely from their rapid pace of walking, and the road’s dust was clinging to their exposed flesh. They were bristling with blades and metallic surfaces, their limbs were bulging with tanned, hardened muscles, and their eyes burned with a near demonic energy. Felix wondered if they should have run but it was too late to escape.