The Plot to Save Socrates (Sierra Waters Book 1)

by Paul Levinson

  "You'll have to ask the dining manager, Mr. Forbish, but I am sure the Club would be able to accommodate you, on a pay as you go basis, as special guests."

  "Thank you," Max replied.

  "Mr. Forbish is on the second floor."

  Max and Sierra smiled, and left the desk.

  "So your plan is....?" Sierra asked, as they walked towards the staircase.

  "Not to leave this place until we find that man with Jowett's papers."

  * * *

  They had prawn Pericles for lunch. "Well, what do you expect," Max said. "We're in the Parthenon."

  "It's good," Sierra said.

  Two well-dressed gentlemen walked by, and looked at their prawn, approvingly.

  "The food is much better, since the new cook," one commented to the other, "wouldn't you agree?"

  Sierra shook her head to Max. "We've got to come up with a better strategy. Whoever it is who's reading Jowett's papers could be walking by us right now, and we'd never know it."

  "I know it," Max said, doggedly. "I could try really pressuring Gleason in the library, but I don't think that would work."

  The two continued eating and scheming. "I guess our best bet is going back down to the library," Max said, "making ourselves as inconspicuous as possible, and hanging out until Jowett's devotee returns the papers."

  "Gleason strikes me as someone who would see us trying to be inconspicuous, and confront us about it," Sierra said. "Maybe we would be better off finding a comfortable place to loiter outside, and see if anyone coming out of the Club looks familiar."

  "You're hoping for who, Thomas?" Max asked.

  Sierra shrugged. "The thought occurred to me. It would at least explain his absence."

  Max ate the last of his prawns, and sipped his sparkling plumcot water. He looked off into the distance, thinking....

  "You seem to have an admirer over there," Max said, gesturing with his head to the back of the dining area, behind Sierra. "He couldn't be that interested in the prawns, not to mention they've already been eaten."

  "Would it be too obvious if I turned around and looked at him?" Sierra asked.

  "No need to," Max replied. "He seems to be coming right this way."

  * * *

  "Ms. Waters? Is that you? Pardon me for barging in!"

  Sierra turned to see a man in a starched white shirt and extravagant suit. He looked about seventy. But definitely not Thomas.

  She smiled her best. "Do we know each other? Have we met? You do look familiar," she lied, to draw him out. Obviously, if he knew her name, he was more than a randy Brit.

  He smiled. "Well, I can say I have met you. You have not yet met me, but you will, again..."

  No, not really British. His accent was American, almost New Yorkish, but not quite that either.

  "Why, was I sleeping?" she asked, impishly.

  He laughed. "I'm William Henry Appleton."

  Neither Sierra nor Max immediately recognized the name. But it seemed, to both of them, that they should...

  "Ah, the ephemerality of reputation," Appleton said. "There was a time when two young scholars such as you would have known the name Appleton instantly!"

  "You were looking at the Jowett papers?" Max asked.

  Appleton nodded. "Mr. Gleason downstairs was good enough to tell me of your interest."

  "You published Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century -- or your great great or whatever grandfather did -- I have some of your books," Sierra said, happy to have finally recognized the name, but astonished. Her stomach felt as if her prawns had sprouted wings there and become butterflies.

  Appleton bowed slightly. "I am afraid to say, I am indeed the Appleton who did the deed."

  Max was on his feet, and pulled out a chair. "Please, would you join us?"

  * * *

  "You see," Appleton said, conspiratorially, after he had seated himself and acceded to a cup of tea, "I must be exceedingly careful what I say to you, lest I unleash the hounds of paradox upon us."

  "You met me in the past," Sierra repeated what he already had told her.

  Appleton nodded.

  "Then, wouldn't it be safer -- less likely to invoke paradox -- if you weren't talking to us now at all?" Sierra asked.

  "Yes, I am sure it would. But I have no choice -- that is, if I want to be of help in this whole matter."

  "How is that?" Sierra asked.

  "You told me about this meeting, now, when we conversed in the past. Indeed, you requested that I meet you here today, because that was the final stimulus that started you on your journey-- but I'd really prefer not talking about that part of our past conversation -- the part that was about this meeting. It is a little too circular and therefore too dangerous -- if you get my drift." He drew small circles in the air with his index finger.

  Max shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  "Oh, you needn't be concerned about your presence here, Dr. Marcus. Ms. Waters mentioned that you were -- would be -- here for this conversation."

  "Thanks," Max said, a bit sourly. "But that wasn't really what I was most concerned about. Can you tell us about the Jowett papers you were looking at?"

  "Oh, by all means," Appleton said. "I was comparing Jowett's copy of the manuscript with the one I brought along with me. You of course have seen part of it, as well."

  "The part I've seen was supposedly unearthed in Alexandria in the early part of our -- twenty-first -- century," Sierra said. "You're claiming you've come here from?"

  "From the year 1889," Appleton replied.

  Max looked at Sierra, to make sure she recalled that was the date from the page of the Jowett log.

  "So the copy of the manuscript in your possession cannot be the copy I have seen, assuming its account of where it was discovered is true," Sierra said.

  "Well, that would not be necessarily impossible," Appleton replied. "That is to say, I know, for a fact, that I have come here from 1889, with a manuscript in hand, so it is first altogether possible that you saw a fragment of the same dialog -- another copy of it -- that was buried in Alexandria until the beginning of this, your, century. But it could well have been my copy, re-routed through my future and your past, you see."

  Sierra sighed. She didn't quite see, or, what she saw, she didn't quite like or completely understand.

  Max spoke. "Can we see your -- or Jowett's -- manuscript?"

  "I don't think that would be advisable," Appleton replied. "It is too soon."

  "That's ridiculous!" Sierra exclaimed in sheer frustration.

  Max's phone beeped. He had set it to check for further news about Thomas. He shook his head. "Nothing more," he said to Sierra, "just a reprint of the same story, now in the EU Mercury."

  Appleton's eyes were on Max's hand. "Is that a cartes-de-visite?"

  Max half-laughed. "Yeah, in a way, it is. A calling card, circa mid-twenty-first century."

  Sierra softened, a little. "I'm sorry to be cross-examining you," she said to Appleton. "Can you tell us what you wanted to talk to me about -- what it was that my future self asked you to brief me about, to prime me for, when she, I, talked to you in the past."

  Max nodded encouragement. Even if this guy was a complete nut, it couldn't hurt to hear what he had to say.

  * * *

  Appleton sipped his tea. "Quite good. But, honestly, not as robust as what I am used to."

  "It's all in the water," Max said.

  Appleton nodded. "I would like to talk to you," he said to Sierra and Max, but mainly to her, "about whether you think the story in the dialog -- that is, as much as you have been able to read of it -- is true."

  "Do you?" Sierra asked.

  "Well, how am I here?" Appleton answered with a question.

  "And from that I'm supposed to conclude?" Sierra asked.

  "That time travel is possible," Appleton answered. "And if that is true, then that makes the dialog believable."

  "We don't know for a fact that you time traveled," Max pointed out. "Or e
ven that you are really William Henry Appleton -- or the William Henry Appleton."

  "I could show you pictures," Appleton said.

  "DNA facial reconstruction," Max countered.

  Appleton looked confused.

  "It would work like this," Max continued. "You're not Appleton; you want us to think you're Appleton; you get DNA from one of his descendants, and grow a new Appleton-like face from it."

  "What is DNA?" Appleton asked.

  "It's ... it's the way in which characteristics are inherited in evolution," Sierra answered.

  Now it was Appleton who struggled to understand. "The vehicles of Darwin's natural selection, that allow organic traits which survive, which are naturally selected to move from parents to offspring?"

  "Yes, that's it." Sierra nodded. "These ... vehicles determine what we look like -- what our faces look like, basically. So, Max was saying that, for all we know, you could be someone other than William Henry Appleton, who obtained his DNA -- the vehicles that determine what we look like -- and you used them to make your face look like Appleton's. We know how to do that, in our world."

  Appleton looked at Max. "I would say that's preposterous, but I have recently learned to be more judicious in use of that word. Would the process you describe work for underlying bone structure?"

  "No," Max admitted. "But you might have had a bone structure similar to Appleton's in the first place."

  Appleton considered. "Fair enough ... Let us try a different tack, then. Have you no other evidence of time travel, other than my audacious claim?"

  "The photo of Thomas," Sierra said quietly to Max. "In front of the Millennium Club in the 1880s."

  Appleton heard it perfectly and smiled with pleasure. "Precisely. And the Millennium's much nicer than the Parthenon," he whispered, "wouldn't you agree?"

  "How well do you know Thomas O'Leary?" Sierra asked.

  "He was the one who first drew me into this, I can tell you that," Appleton answered.

  "His modus operandus," Max muttered.

  Sierra ignored it. This time, Appleton either did not hear it, or pretended as much.

  "How, exactly, did you get here?" Sierra asked him.

  "I traveled forward at the Millennium Club in New York -- I arrived there a few weeks ago. Then I flew here -- air flight is magnificent! -- and waited for you to arrive."

  "You came here to meet us, because I asked you to," Sierra said.

  Appleton nodded.

  "But that request was made in my future, and it was intended to get me to that place -- that time -- to make the request. When exactly did that request originate, in the first place?" Sierra asked.

  "I don't know. You'll have to ask yourself."

  Sierra scoffed.

  "I apologize for seeming to make light of that aspect," Appleton said. "It's a snake swallowing its tail, a mirror pointed at a mirror ... that's why it's better not to talk of it."

  "What else do you ... did I ... want me to do?" Sierra asked. "You mentioned starting on my 'journey'."

  "You are actually already embarked upon a journey, if you think upon it," Appleton replied. "You wanted me to encourage you to continue that journey, so you could help save Socrates!"

  Sierra scoffed again, louder. "What makes you think I want to do that? I don't particularly feel that way now."

  "No? Why, then, are you here?"

  "I'm here because of Thomas," Sierra said, hotly. "If I want to save anyone, it would be him."

  "You don't care about Socrates?"

  "I didn't say I don't care about him. Obviously, I'm interested in him, and what happened to him. Any person with a working brain would be. Hell, the only death that received more attention than his in history is Jesus Christ's. But that doesn't mean I'm obsessed with saving Socrates!"

  "You don't care that he died, what that meant to freedom of speech?" Appleton pressed.

  "Yes, I care, I just said I did. And yes, I believe in freedom of speech," Sierra said.

  "Then wouldn't you want to stop that Athenian jury of 500 from sentencing Socrates to death? He was sentenced because they said his speech was corrupting the morals of minors. They were not talking about lewd activity -- they were talking about plain politics!"

  "Let's say Socrates wanted to die?" Max spoke up. "Suppose he wanted to die because he wanted to discredit the Athenian democracy. Would you deny him his right to die?"

  "Yes, I would. And all the more reason if somehow, in his tortuous reasoning, he thought his death would make Athens, the birthplace of democracy, look bad."

  "You don't seem to have much regard for Socrates, yourself," Sierra said.

  "I never said I did. Only that his rescue would be worthy."

  "God, I feel like we're in a Platonic dialog right now, right here," Max said.

  Appleton just smiled.

  "Did you write that dialog?" Sierra asked him.

  "I am very flattered. But I assure you, I did not."

  "How can you be sure of that, given what you know about time travel?" Sierra pressed. "Perhaps you will write the dialog in your future."

  Appleton nodded acknowledgment. "Yes, I would have to admit that I cannot rule out entirely anything in my future. All right, then, I'll amend my previous statement to: I feel certain, indeed in my very bones, that I am not the author of that dialog."

  "Why don't you go back to 399 BC, and save Socrates," Max said, impatiently. "For all we know, you already did."

  "I assure you, I am not Andros."

  "You just admitted you couldn't give us any assurances," Max said.

  Appleton nodded. "Yes, but Andros is described in more detail in a part of the dialog I believe you have not seen. That description is clearly not me."

  "Is it me?" Sierra asked. Her voice quavered.

  "That is not clear. Though the name 'Andros' certainly suggests the masculine."

  "Will you show it to us?" Sierra asked. "I mean, at least that part that describes Andros?"

  Appleton considered. "Yes, I will." He signaled the waiter. "Put this on my account, please. Thank you." He turned to Sierra and Max. "I found, when I arrived in New York in your time, that my lifetime membership at the Millennium was still valid, after all of these years -- more than 150 years, in fact, plus I no doubt already died back then." Appleton rolled his eyes. "It's absurd, I know, but there you have it and here I am. That's what I call support for the membership! And, of course, we have always had reciprocal arrangements here with the Parthenon."

  * * *

  The three made their way, in edgy silence, down to Gleason the librarian's desk.

  But the desk was empty. "Unpersonned," Max noted the obvious.

  "Hmm," Appleton grunted. "I'm sure he'll be back in a minute."

  But the desk was still unpersonned ten minutes later.

  "What is it with these Club librarians?" Sierra complained. "The Millennium was missing their librarian yesterday, as well."

  "Really? Not my experience with either Club, at all," Appleton said.

  The three shuffled their feet and juggled their anxieties for another few minutes.

  "All right," Appleton finally said, frowning. "Perhaps there is another way of getting at this. Would you care to follow me?"

  He started walking before he received a response. Sierra and Max looked at each other ... and followed.

  They reached the other end of the room, and a door with a gleaming new keypad. Appleton seemed familiar with it. He ran his fingers over the keys and opened the door. "I believe it's not just the keys but my palm signature, as it was explained to me."

  They walked down a long flight of stairs. Lights invoked by their presence flickered into a soft, soothing glow.

  Two sleek chairs came into view, in the center of the otherwise unfurnished room.

  Appleton introduced the visitors to the chairs. "Those can provide another way that you can obtain the dialog, perhaps even more."

  Max and Sierra approached the chairs. "These don't look like reading
chairs," Sierra said.

  "Well, I suppose you could sit and read in them, but--"

  "Sierra is referring to chairs we have, in this century, in which you sit back, and a screen emerges from an arm, and you can read any book you like," Max explained.

  "Ah, no, these would not be not that kind of chair."

  * * *

  "So, you took a chair like that from 1889 in New York City, and arrived in our time in New York, 2042, then boarded a plane to London with the reservation Thomas left for you.... But you have not actually ... traveled in either of these two chairs," Sierra reiterated for her own understanding, after Appleton had told them what he knew about the chairs and his voyage.

  "Yes, that is correct," Appleton said, still not happy with having to explain all of this to Sierra and Max. But with Gleason absent, and Appleton's primary charge to get Sierra on her way, he had no choice.

  "And where, exactly, do these chairs -- all of the chairs -- come from?" Max asked. "Who put them in the Parthenon and the Millennium Clubs?"

  "I honestly do not know," Appleton replied.

  "But you believe these chairs can only go back in time, not forward from here?" Max asked.

  "Yes. Thomas sketched that part of this out to me. And some of this I figured out myself, and it was not quite as Thomas had said. Perhaps there are different levels of control, dependent upon the traveler's possession of different codes. In my experience, once you sit in the chair and initiate its activity, you are provided with a menu of choices -- they are recited to you. None of the destinations are beyond this, your, time."

  "What's the earliest?" Max asked. "The time of Pericles, Plato, and Socrates?"

  "No, that is one of the frustrating aspects," Appleton replied. "The earliest time that I seem to have access to is 150 AD."

  "So, assuming we have also have access to that time in these chairs, how would that give us a look at the dialog?" Sierra asked. She realized the answer a split second later. "Because 150 AD is much closer to 399 BC and the death of Socrates than we are now."

  "Exactly," Appleton said. "And I was thinking, if you could arrange a visit to the legendary Library of Alexandria -- reputed to have a copy of every manuscript ever written and disseminated in the ancient world -- well, that Library might well have a copy of our dialog. But such a journey would be very hazardous -- I assume any journey would be, that far back in history."