The Plot to Save Socrates (Sierra Waters Book 1)

by Paul Levinson

  "Why, yes, we are," Appleton replied, with equal cheer.

  Bertram nodded, and spoke softly. "It's especially good today .... Don't tell anyone I told you this, but I've noticed the members are enjoying the food much more since we signed on that new chef!"

  "I love all the food of this era!" Appleton exulted.

  Bertram trained a gimlet eye on Appleton, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Well, yes, I suppose you could say this is a new era for the Millennium's cuisine."

  Thomas smiled briefly and nodded. Bertram took his leave.

  The two men climbed the carpeted staircase to the elegant Victorian dining room.

  * * *

  "You're especially serious today, Thomas," Appleton observed, as he scooped out a juicy piece of new multismo melon. He put it into his mouth, and savored the flavor. "Extraordinary!"

  "The lines are converging," Thomas responded.

  "You mean in 399 BC?"

  "Yes."

  "Then they have already converged, and what has happened has happened," Appleton said.

  Thomas waved the point away. "Spare me. I'm not in the mood for that today. What has happened has already happened, true, but if it is to bring something new into the world, something of which we are not aware, then in our existence it has not yet really happened. Or, it has happened in a way that makes no impact, in which case we have wasted our time, and that is not a very happy prospect to contemplate, either."

  "The wheels are moving back there -- they already have moved back there -- and there is nothing we can now do to change that. This is the point I was making," Appleton said. "There are no chairs upstairs. Jonah says that Heron--"

  Thomas scowled.

  "I know you don't care for Heron," Appleton continued. "But this could not have happened without him. You had the ideas. He had the gadgets."

  "That's true enough about the equipment," Thomas observed. "You're probably too generous to me regarding the ideas."

  "Oh?"

  "I can truthfully say I don't really know who really came up with these ideas, this plan, in the first place -- except it wasn't me."

  "It has to be Andros."

  Thomas sighed. "We're all embroiderers of a plan whose creator we do not know. I have been woven and I have woven. I've spent..." Thomas paused, and shook his head. "I've woven others into this, including Sierra, including you--"

  "I'm quite pleased to have been so woven, I assure you."

  Thomas winced then smiled a little. "We have to be closer to the event. We can't just sit here."

  "What do you propose? We have no means of transport to the past. No chairs in residence upstairs."

  "None here, no," Thomas responded.

  "None in London, either," Appleton said.

  "Right. That leaves us Athens."

  Appleton put down his spoon. "We can't go to Athens -- you've said so yourself, many times -- we have to avoid that vanished boat, at all costs. And this is precisely the time the boat went missing, isn't it? Miss Waters thinks you're in Wilmington -- you told her this morning you were going there. But she'll soon find out you went to Athens instead, when she reads in that electrical newspaper that your boat disappeared in the Aegean. You don't want that to happen -- you don't want to be on that boat. So now you propose going to that very part of the world?"

  "We'll fly by fast plane," Thomas responded. "We'll go to the place between Athens and Piraeus that I told you about -- it's still there -- and take the chairs. No boats. No disappearances at sea."

  "There has to be another way, that does not take us so close--"

  "There is no other way. There are no other chairs. We can't just sit and talk and wait. I can't just throw her to the wolves of time -- I'm responsible, one-hundred percent, for her being in ancient Athens right now."

  Appleton shook his head. "It still beggars the brain to think of one person in two places at the same time. She's here in New York City, yes? and a somewhat older self is back there in the golden age of Greece…. Whilst a slightly younger version of myself is in the Parthenon Club right now."

  "Yes."

  "And are you sure you-?"

  "About Sierra being in 399 BC Athens?"

  "No, I know you're not sure about that," Appleton said. "How could you be? But you do have reason enough to think that she likely is there..."

  "Yes, I do."

  "I meant, are you sure about flying to Athens right now?" Appleton said.

  "Yes," Thomas replied.

  "Should I call for the check, then?"

  "No, we can wait for the after-lunch macaroons. We're not in that kind of a rush," Thomas answered. "Besides, the chairs should take us back to 399 BC, or close to that year, regardless of whether we arrive in Athens today or tomorrow."

  * * *

  Appleton looked out the window of the hypersonic transport. There wasn't much to see, but he loved it anyway.

  Thomas pored over the dialog. There was a lot to see, and he loved and hated it.

  Appleton, with some effort, moved his eyes from the blur outside, and regarded Thomas and the dialog.

  "Heron cannot be Andros, because of their ages," Appleton said.

  Thomas nodded.

  "What about a younger Heron?" Appleton asked.

  "We know from multiple sources that Heron invented the chairs when he was 52, in the future. Heron at that age or older would have had to recruit the younger Heron. That creates a pretty nasty paradox -- young Heron gets a visit from older Heron, or his representative, about a device young Heron must later invent? Risky. If young Heron later invents the chairs because of information his older self gave him, where did that information come from in the first place--"

  "I see the problem," Appleton said. "Still ... ok, let's consider some less paradoxical candidates. Maxwell Marcus seems accomplished in ancient culture and modern science."

  "He is," Thomas agreed. "But his ancient Greek couldn't possibly be good enough to carry on that level of conversation with Socrates."

  "And Jonah?"

  "Just the reverse. His Greek would likely be comprehensible to Socrates, even with their different dialects, if Jonah spoke slowly and clearly, but he couldn't possibly have such ease with our science."

  "He's a very bright boy," Appleton countered. "He has spent a lot of time with Heron, and with us here as well, and seems to know more about the chairs and their operation than anyone other than Heron.... Still, I agree that Andros seems to have a depth of wisdom, an ease of knowledge, that is beyond Jonah or anyone his age.... All right, let's look at this question a different way, then. Let's say we knew, for an absolute fact, that Andros was not Heron, Maxwell, or Jonah. Who, then, do you think Andros might be? Someone we don't know from Adam, or someone--"

  The landing announcement came on, in six soothing renditions.

  * * *

  [Athens, 2042 AD]

  The HST clicked in tightly and smoothly, like a paper clip to a magnet, on the landing strip at Athens Realport. "The old airport was blown up two times, earlier in this century," Thomas told Appleton. "They finally built this out here, on the sea, and it stuck. Much more defensible than anything on land."

  "Who blew it up?"

  "Terrorists. They were like locusts back then."

  Appleton grimaced.

  "You had them in your day, too," Thomas continued. "Just not as well organized." William McKinley will be President, and assassinated by an anarchist, a few years after Cleveland finishes his second term, Thomas recalled. Just two years after your own death. He was glad Appleton could not see into his mind.

  They took an amphicab over sea and land to the house with the chairs, halfway between Piraeus and Athens. The house had been many things over the millennia, most recently a brothel. Now it was a medium-priced restaurant. The chairs, when they were present, were against the walls of a private room in the back.

  Thomas and Appleton entered. Their eyes took a few moments to adjust to the loss of sunlight.

&nb
sp; A lone man was sitting at the bar, his back to the entrance. He turned and offered greetings. "Good to see you," he said to Thomas. He nodded at Appleton, and sipped from a short, thick glass, which he raised. "The ouzo is delicious -- would you care for some?" He spoke English in a slight Greek and unidentifiable accent that sounded mostly peculiar but also a bit familiar to Appleton.

  Appleton squinted at him. "Have we perhaps had the pleasure of meeting before?"

  The man at the bar squinted back. "I don't believe so."

  Thomas grunted. "William Henry Appleton meet Heron of Alexandria and many other places."

  * * *

  The three sipped ouzo at a table. "We have the place to ourselves," Heron said. "I paid the owner well."

  "He knows about the chairs?" Appleton asked.

  "He knows there is something in the back which is mine, and which he should pay no attention to, other than to make sure no one else pays attention to it," Heron explained. "He probably thinks I'm a dealer in drugs. He is happy to take my money."

  Thomas smiled, sourly. "We are in a way, aren't we? Your chairs are a psychedelic to history -- dilating this, contracting that, except they change not only the perception but the reality ..."

  "What is psychedelic?" Appleton asked.

  "Drugs that expand your mind," Thomas explained, and told Appleton about Thomas Huxley's grandson Aldous, and Timothy Leary, and the rise and fall of mescaline and LSD in the middle of the 20th century.

  "Yes, I can see the resemblance," Appleton said. "And this time travel also can kill us, just as surely as too many doses of drugs ...." He talked about the three men vanishing in a boat in the Aegean. "And, with the three of us here, we now have fulfilled the requisite number."

  "Let me assure you," Heron said, "I, at least, have no intention of traveling anywhere away from here by boat."

  "I assumed as much," Appleton replied. "Nonetheless, these time trips have a habit of taking us to places we did not intend, and by unexpected means .... And we're much closer now to three men in a boat in the Aegean than ever before, aren't we...."

  "Where -- when -- were you intending to go from here?" Thomas asked Heron.

  He smiled. "Well, that is the prime question, isn't it .... You know when ... to the fateful night, just after Crito left Socrates..."

  Thomas sighed. "The dialog says Andros is half Socrates' age, and I thought that exempted you. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe the dialog lied, or the age of Andros got mangled in some copying, and you are Andros, after all..."

  "Oh no, I am certain I am not," Heron replied. "Indeed, I have had similar doubts about the dialog and the age it gives to Andros, and was thinking you are the most likely to be that visitor from the future."

  Thomas scoffed.

  The two stared at each other...

  "Fruitless debate, if I may," Appleton finally broke the vacuum. "Why not just travel back, not to talk to Socrates or do anything back there, but just observe. That would tell us who Andros was, once and for all, would it not?"

  "I have traveled back to that night, many times," Heron said.

  "And what did you see?" Appleton asked.

  "Nothing," Heron replied. "Nothing useful. Athenians in front of the prison -- no one with a sign that said 'Andros'. I cannot just burst into the prison and start asking questions--"

  "No, no, of course not," Appleton said. "And the next morning?"

  "No indication that Socrates escaped. But that tells us nothing. If the plan in the dialog was successfully executed, no one would have known that Socrates had escaped..."

  "Yes, I see...," Appleton said.

  Thomas shifted uneasily in his seat, and drained the last of his ouzo.

  "Would you care for more?" Heron inquired.

  Thomas shook his head. "So you plan to travel back to that evening now, again."

  "Yes."

  "And you're leaving the rescue of Socrates entirely in the hands of Andros, whom you profess not to know. Even though you both come from the future."

  "The future's a big place," Heron replied. "I do not know who Andros is. But I'm not going to quite leave everything up to him -- or her."

  "You think Andros is a she?" Appleton asked. "Sierra Waters?"

  "Sierra Waters is many people," Heron replied. "She is Ampharete, she is ... but no, I do not think she is Andros. Beyond that, I am just saying that I do not know who he -- or she -- really is. Socrates certainly does not say anything in the dialog -- nor does Andros -- to make us think Andros is a woman. But Andros could have been a woman disguised as a man.... I simply do not know. I have had well-paid spies in Athens, for months prior to and after the recorded death of Socrates. No one has come across or heard of anyone with the name Andros."

  "It is easy enough to change a name," Appleton said.

  "Of course," Heron said. "That is part of the problem."

  "What help are you going to offer Andros?" Thomas asked.

  Heron finished off his own ouzo, smacked his lips, and looked at Appleton, who was finishing his. "Are we all done with this marvelous anisette concoction, then?"

  Appleton nodded.

  "Good." Heron stood. "Then let us adjourn to the private room, and I will show you what I have done."

  * * *

  The door of the private room snapped opened to Heron's palm.

  Appleton gasped. He was still caught off-guard by the everyday miracles of this time, a century and a half after his own.

  What he saw inside, on one of the three chairs against the wall, was beyond gasping.

  "That must be Socrates," Appleton managed. "He looks nothing like his pictures."

  "Not Socrates," Heron corrected. "The clone of Socrates. You see--"

  "I know," Appleton said. "Thomas explained."

  Thomas was frowning. "You claim not to be in touch with Andros, yet you are going back to 399 AD with this sleeping double of Socrates. What then? Socrates' jailors will find two of his dead bodies, riven by hemlock, after the living man escapes? One produced by Andros and one by you?"

  "You're not an engineer, Thomas, that is your problem," Heron responded. "Redundancy. The very word is one of complaint in the mouths of sophists and philosophers: to be redundant is to talk too much, to make the same point unnecessarily more than once. But real life is different. Are not our very bodies redundant -- two lungs, two eyes, two ears, two testicles? Yes, I do not know if Andros really has access to a clone of Socrates. But why take chances? If my Socrates makes a crowd of three, I'll just kill him and bury him where no one will find him. A simple matter."

  Appleton shuddered.

  Heron turned to him. "Come now. Surely Thomas explained this, if he explained anything to you at all. That sleeping double is not really alive. He certainly has no soul, never had one. He is just a collection of living parts that adds up to a mindless twin of Socrates."

  "That's true enough," Thomas acceded. "But what about the collections of living parts that do add up to complete, sensate human beings? Who else do you expect in the prison of Socrates?"

  "Ampharete is the one I'm most certain of," Heron replied.

  "With Maxwell Marcus?" Appleton asked.

  "Lost somewhere in the past, I am afraid," Heron replied. "He is off my radar."

  Appleton looked troubled.

  "It's a location device--" Thomas began.

  "I am concerned about the man, not the technology," Appleton almost shouted. "I am sorry...."

  "Lots of people disappear in the past, and then resurface," Heron offered a touch of reassurance. "It's big place, too, after all." And he half-laughed.

  Appleton said nothing.

  "What about Jonah?" Thomas asked.

  Heron shook his head, sadly. "I am afraid I can no longer rely upon him -- he has ideas of his own--"

  "A point in his favor," Thomas muttered, almost under his breath. "Where in time is he?" Thomas inquired, more audibly.

  Heron ignored all of it. "I am afraid he hates me now -- he holds me responsible
for..."

  Thomas's eyes narrowed. "The death of Sierra?"

  Heron began. "I--"

  Appleton grabbed Heron's shoulder. "What are you saying? You expect that young lady to die in the prison of Socrates tonight? That's unacceptable and dishonorable!"

  Heron carefully removed the hand and regarded the late Victorian. "Not tonight. Not in Athens, in any millennium."

  "When, then?" Appleton demanded.

  "In Alexandria, in 415 AD," Heron replied. "Her name was Hypatia, then--"

  "Hypatia!" Appleton's mouth twisted in anger. He struggled for control. "A brilliant mathematician, a philosopher.... I know what happened to her," he said, a bit more levelly. "I know the story. Kingsley and others have told it. One of the worst moments in history -- she was stripped naked, hacked to death with oyster shells, her body burned..."

  "You do not understand--" Heron began.

  "I understand this," Appleton said. "If there is any chance in the cosmos that Sierra is Hypatia, then I do not blame the Alexandrian boy in the slightest for hating you... " Appleton looked at Thomas, who had turned away from the conversation. "You have no opinion? She was your student, for God's sake -- you brought her into this."

  "It is everyone's fault, not just Thomas's," Heron said. "She did not--"

  Appleton cursed loudly and moved quickly. He jumped into one of the chairs and quickly tapped in all of the departure signals. He mumbled to himself... "I assume these chairs work the same as the ones in London and New York..." The bubble came up, and shimmered its imminent exit in time--

  Heron pulled Thomas into the outside room.

  * * *

  The two returned quiet and shaken into the private room a few minutes later.

  "My God...," Thomas said.

  Only one of the three chairs was against the wall. It was empty.

  "The Socrates chair was programmed to travel along with the first chair that went back," Heron said. "I could hardly have depended on the unconscious clone to drive it."

  Thomas sighed, heavily.

  "Why on Earth did you bring that 19th-century buffoon here with you in the first place?" Heron demanded.

  "I don't trust you," Thomas replied, evenly. "I was grateful for his help.... And he's no buffoon. He's just ... well, 19th century. He feels strongly about honor."