Clockwork Phoenix 3: new tales of beauty and strangeness

by Mike Allen

  But looking at the literature, I can’t find a single recorded case where two different individuals left the same resonance pattern. Not one. The energy signatures are supposed to be more unique to the individual than fingerprints, retinal patterns or voiceprints. If you can find a confirmed exception, then please show it to me; I know I’m relatively new at this, but I think I know how to read.

  Mathilde

  * * *

  From inside the still, musty storehouse, the noises outside were strangely louder, as if they thought he was hiding and were calling to him. Thomas heard every mournful, futile whisper of the breeze, every restless complaint of the birds. Naturally he couldn’t avoid hearing the groans and thuds of the wagon and its two horses as they drove up the hillside from the west.

  Squinting with his bad eyes in the painful sunlight, he saw a straight grey blur with spots of cream and a coppery halo atop the wagon. It was Anne, her fiery hair under a cap. Though he couldn’t make out the details, something in her posture told Thomas that she was holding the reins with more force than was necessary. The horses shook their heads nervously.

  “Not the usual time for you to visit the storehouse,” Thomas said, wondering what the horses knew that he didn’t.

  Without introduction or greeting, Anne’s flat, practical voice said, “I’ll need you to give me as many of the food stores as you can, Thomas.”

  “Give?” He shaded his eyes with his hand. “Give, for charity?”

  “Aye, it should be for charity, you hard man, but I know you’ll not give a crumb unless it’s paid for. So here.” She threw something at him; he had to stumble forward to catch it in his hands with a heavy chink. It was a bag of coins—a lot of coins. He counted them quickly with his fingers, his eyebrows lifting to his hairline.

  “This would buy all that’s inside,” he said. “It won’t fit on the wagon, all that.” Anne’s farm was no smaller than anyone else’s, and she had no family to feed, but these coins must represent nearly all she had in the world. It made no sense.

  She answered, “Well, then consider it your best bargain of the season. Lord knows you need all the help you can get.”

  “There’s no need to insult me, is there? Tell me, what’ll you do with what you’ve bought so dearly?”

  There was a pause. Then she said, “Drive to London.”

  Involuntarily Thomas stepped three paces forward; now he could see the expression on her face. But it did him no good; her face told him as little as her voice. “London? You’ll drive a cart of food into the middle of a plague city?”

  “Aye, if they’ll let me in. They’re starving.”

  “They’re dying of the Black Death, woman! You’ll have no trouble getting in. It’s out that’ll be the problem.”

  “The ones who aren’t dying of the Black Death are starving. No one will go into the city.”

  “And for good reason! Those that go in don’t come out.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Will you throw your life away?”

  “I’d not call it ‘throwing away,’” she answered. Then a strange, wide grin came over her face, a grin that he’d never seen on her before, reminding Thomas of a wolf on the hunt. It made him draw back, so that she was a comforting blur again. “Besides, it’s been done before.”

  “No doubt.” He grimaced, moving into the storehouse.

  “Have you any apples in the storehouse?” she called after him.

  “Apples? No, they were gone a month ago.”

  “Pity, that. I have a real craving for a yellow apple; came on me all of a sudden.”

  Thomas found that he was reluctant to emerge again from the storehouse. When he came out with the goods, Anne had dismounted and took the first sack from him. So close as that, he could smell her sweat and the rosemary on her breath, and could see that she still wore that weird smile.

  As he came close enough to hoist the sack, Thomas saw that there was a sign scratched on to the wagon’s side, using a bit of chalk or stone, or possibly a metal tool. It was three circles in a row, each with a tiny stem over it. It hadn’t been there when Anne drove up, he was sure. A witch’s mark?

  He did not have long to ponder the question. She gave him an unexpected kiss on the forehead with her dry lips before ascending again and geeing up the horses. Back inside the building he couldn’t avoid the odd, foreign melody of her whistling as the cart rumbled back down the hill. It took a long time before the sounds were gone.

  For the rest of his life, Thomas listened half-hopefully for the sounds of Anne’s horses. But they never came.

  * * *

  Instantiation, substantiation, manifestation, possession? I am no one, if more than nothing; years pass, but not for me. Then I feel, like an embrace, the fear and devotion—the lifeboat overflows, the enemy surprises the patrol, the burning wall begins to collapse, the asteroid approaches the shuttle, the dike bursts.

  And I walk the earth again.

  * * *

  Mathilde:

  You have no call to be offended. You are presenting unusual conclusions to the principal investigator with very little to back them up. You have to expect to be pressed on your hypotheses if you’re going to stay in this business.

  Yes, I do find the disparate DNA echo evidence “dispositive.” If the same individual actually handled all seven objects, then that individual would have left an echo on each of them. Maybe it wouldn’t have survived, but somebody’s echo survived, since you found it on the artifacts. The fact that it shows seven distinct, unrelated individuals seems to decide the matter.

  As you say, I don’t know of any recorded cases in which different individuals left the same resonance pattern. Perhaps we’ve found the first one. Or perhaps we’ve found evidence that resonance patterns normalize or disorganize under certain conditions. Each of those would be a meaningful discovery, would it not?

  Let’s not forget that our object is to collect meaningful data and find the explanations that most satisfactorily explain it. We’re not after ultimate “truth.”

  Leo

  * * *

  Nicander could still smell the smoke from the campfires that had been put out. Pacing steadily over the cold, rocky ground, he saw the faintest blue traces over a few remaining spots. He nodded with approval. The enemy almost certainly knew their position and their numbers, and so the men had been allowed a little warmth and a chance to cook some meat, but there was no point being reckless.

  Now they were all at work, whetting swords or repairing armor. Any talk was so low he could barely hear it, which was as it should be. They knew their business. A full night’s sleep, and they’d be ready for—well, perhaps not ready for what was coming, but readier than any other army would have been. The twilight would end soon, and the night would be cold.

  Nicander stopped at his captain’s tent, cleared his throat, and said his own name loudly enough to carry. There was no reply, which he safely interpreted to be an invitation to enter.

  A single lamp lit the space, granting Alexandros the look of a shadowy giant. He was oiling the straps of his armor and humming to himself, that same annoying marching tune he’d had on his lips for a month.

  “Yes, Nico?” said Alexandros, who hadn’t looked up when his enomotarch came in.

  “One of the men can do that for you,” said Nicander.

  “Yes, and they can do their own, can’t they?” said the captain. “Have you urgent tasks to take me away from the work of an honest soldier?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, then. How are the men?”

  “Calm, sir, for the most part. Some are edgy because they don’t like the terrain.”

  “Ah now, the terrain is perfect.” Alexandros spoke as if he were a connoisseur tasting a rare wine. He set down the armor, rubbed the excess oil on his arms, and picked up his sword like a father holding his infant son. He took out a whetstone and began to sharpen the blade, beaming at his handiwork.

  Nicander said, “Gates of
Fire.”

  “Delightful name for a battlefield,” said Alexandros. “Makes you feel like you’re already doing something great.”

  There was a pause. Alexandros seemed to know that Nicander had more to say, but he didn’t ask him to continue. He ran his finger along the blade, nodding. Then he blew the iron dust off it; but he did not set down either the sword or the whetstone.

  Nicander cleared his throat again. Alexandros looked up, amused.

  Nicander said, “Sir, what in name of the Dog we are doing here?”

  “Obeying the King.”

  “And what is he doing here?”

  Alexandros seemed to consider whether this was insubordinate talk. Then he answered, “Having a drink with the Persians.”

  “Sir—”

  “What is it you want to know, Nico?” The captain paused, glancing over at a bowl of golden apples on a small table. “The tactical situation is obvious. When you have a small force and the enemy has a large one, you choose the narrowest place possible. Can’t get any narrower than this.” He looked pleased with himself. “We’ll hold them off all day. Several days, maybe.”

  “And then?”

  “One of two things happens: either they’ll go away, or we’ll get to meet Charon face to face. Prissy fellow; he’s probably Athenian.”

  Nicander ignored the blasphemy. The captain delighted in shocking him. “You think they’ll go away?”

  “Persians? They might. They dislike getting bloody noses.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “I just said.”

  “But if we know we’re going to lose—”

  “It’s not a loss. Lose a few hundred to save a few hundred thousand? Any trader in the market knows what a bargain that is.”

  “And we just make the trade?”

  For no apparent reason, the captain’s whole demeanor changed. He grinned, the wild, hungry grin of battle that Nicander knew so well. Using the whetstone, he slowly scratched three circles on the blade of his sword, near the hilt. Then he finished with a tiny line on each of the circles. Finally he lifted his sword to his face and kissed it.

  Alexandros asked, “You were saying, Nico?” His voice had changed too, becoming hoarse; his eyes were dilated and the irises looked darker. Nicander fought an unreasonable urge to flee.

  “I was saying, sir—I was saying, will we just make the trade? Give up all our lives without even a victory?”

  Alexandros picked up one of the golden apples from the tray, tossed it into the air, caught it, and brought it to his mouth.

  “Why not? It’s been done before,” he said, biting into the crisp, sweet fruit.

  * * *

  For a moment, I am Anne; for another, I am Krikor. I am Dzuling, Juan, Mbogo, Alexandros. There are a thousand crucial moments, but always the same choice. I do the only thing I know how to do.

  Do I change anything? Brave men and women who never met me nonetheless offer their last breaths at the feet of their friends; I have seen them do it. So too Dzuling might have given herself for the shuttle unaided; maybe Jan would have faced the S.S. alone. Perhaps I do not forge their courage.

  Perhaps the only gift I bring is joy.

  MURDER IN METACHRONOPOLIS

  John C. Wright

  16

  Third beginning:

  I woke up when my gun jumped into my hand. It was an Unlimited Class Paradox Proctor Special, and it was better than any alarm, better than any guard dog.

  I relaxed my eyelids open just a crack. It was dark. My balcony windows were fully polarized, so the glow from the golden towers outside showed only as faint, ghostly streaks reaching from pale mist below to black sky above.

  The door, the creator, and the dreambox all showed like blocky shadows in the gloom. I couldn’t see more. This was one of the rooms in a lower tower, a pretty shabby affair, not far above the mist, and the towerlight from outside would have been dim even if the windows had been dialed to transparent.

  There. A silhouette against the glass. It was tall, with some sort of wide headgear, perhaps with a plume above.

  I raised my arm very slowly, careful not to rustle the sheets.

  I said, in the Control language, “Lights!”

  The lights came on.

  He didn’t look surprised. That is a bad sign.

  The joker himself was dressed like a French Musketeer from Cardinal Richelieu’s time, complete with ruffles, lace, tall boots, swordbelt, and pig-sticker. There was something about him that made me think he was real, not repro. Maybe it was the battered, used look in his hilt and scabbard; maybe it was the battered, used look on his face. Maybe it was the smell. Usually you can tell pre-industrial from postindustrial types in one whiff.

  One anachronism was the skull-plug clinging like an insect to the base of his neck. And that was wrong, all wrong, if this guy was a party-killer. There’s some strange types wandering like ghosts in the Towers, from every spot of history that ever was, and a lot that never were, drifting from party to party, if they still got luster, or just drifting, if they don’t. Some of the strangest are the party-killers, the kinds that do murder just to see who is going to be resurrected by the next day, and who’ll be forgotten.

  But this guy was all wrong for that. Real party-killers never used brainjacks to record their sensations. For them, death had to be live, or else it was nothing.

  Second, this guy didn’t look nervous or scared. He had the not-surprised look of a bad actor going through a flat rehearsal.

  Third, he recognized my piece. And not many people have seen the three-dimensional cross-section of an Unlimited Special. What I had in my hand wasn’t the whole weapon array, arsenal, detection and tracking gear, etc. That would fill up a room, or even a warehouse. No, all I had in hand was the aiming-guide, firing mechanisms, and the shielding unit which protected me from backscatter.

  Still. Not many people know what it’s like to look into the business end of an Unlimited Special. Not many at all.

  “You’re a Time Master,” I said.

  “Very good, Mr. Frontino,” he said. His voice was blurry and harsh, as if he were not used to using the vocal cords he was using now. “That is the quickest you’ve ever come to the correct conclusion—this time around.”

  “And you’re going to pretend I don’t remember the other versions, because of—why?”

  He spread his hands awkwardly, a gesture like a puppet with a clumsy puppeteer would make. “That should be obvious, Mr. Frontino.”

  “My other versions are being killed. And I suppose that if I pulled this trigger, your alternates won’t remember this version we’re in now either, eh?”

  “Unless they were monitoring, no. They say the only way to kill a Master of Time, a careful one who looks into his past and future, is to wait for him to kill himself. But you flatliners don’t have that privilege, do you?” He smiled, sort of a sickly impersonation of good humor.

  “Yeah. But we don’t have to sneak around, so afraid of paradoxes that we can’t even show our own faces in our own city that we allegedly rule. And we don’t have groups of phonies and crazies out and about pretending that they’re us when they’re not.”

  I reached up with my other hand and made an adjustment. Dots from aiming lasers appeared on his groin and chest and the wrist of his right hand, which was a little too near the hilt of his sword for my taste.

  (Think it’s funny, guy like me, armed as I was, afraid of his old-fashioned weapon, eh? People who think swords are quaint, not dangerous, never saw one used by a pro who knows his business. And the business is death by laceration, evisceration, impalement. No, swords are not quaint at all.)

  I said: “There’s one on the spot between your eyes, too. You can’t see it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Mr. Frontino.”

  I eyed him up and down carefully, looking for blurs or distortions which might indicate a timeshift. Nothing. Maybe he was actually all the way here, in this timespace, flying blind. But
why? Most Masters kept a version or two of themselves posted a minute or so in the future to give themselves plenty of warning for any surprises coming. Not him though. Why? Didn’t make sense.

  He was still waiting for my next line. He didn’t just sit there and tell me what I was about to say, like most Masters I’d met. Maybe he was less rude than most; or maybe he was just waiting for me to say something to let him know he was in the right version. Or, most likely, maybe he wasn’t a Master of Eternity at all.

  Whatever. “Spill it. Whatever you’re here to say. Say it. Then get out.”

  “I’m here to hire you to solve a murder, Mr. Frontino.”

  “And you’re pretending to be a Master? Walk back into the past and look for yourself.”

  “It hasn’t happened yet.” Again, the crooked smile.

  “Cute. And are you going to stop it if I solve it?”

  “Not me. Not that I foresee.” Again, the smile.

  “Solve a crime and let it happen anyway, is that the plan? Sorry. Not interested. I’m retired. ’Bye.”

  “Retired? But aren’t you the only Private Investigator in Metachronopolis? You’ve even got a fedora and a trenchcoat!”

  “Everyone dressed like that when I’m from. And I’m retired as far as the Bigwigs are concerned. Some Time Master wants to solve a crime? Step into the past and watch it happen or the future when it’s already been solved. Look it up in history book. What do you need mere mortals for? Manpower? Double yourself up a hundred times.”

  “There are limits to the powers of the Masters of Eternity. Grim limits. Though, sometimes, where exactly those boundaries lay are…misty.”

  He seemed to think that was funny. Before things got too humorous, I decided to cut things short. I opened the firing aperture with a twist of the wrist to maximum cone-of-blast and let him see me set the timer. The timer started beeping a countdown.