The Plot to Save Socrates (Sierra Waters Book 1)

by Paul Levinson

  "You think he is a threat to the restored democracy?"

  "Yes and no. There are truthfully very few people who pay him any attention, other than his devoted students."

  "Perhaps the best course of action would just be to ignore him," Sierra said. "Socrates is certainly no youngster."

  Anytus shook his head. "Sophocles lived to be 90. Gorgias of Sicily is still hale in his 80s. Socrates is only 70. Philosophers have an unfortunate habit of living a long time.... But I have no course of action in mind, one way or the other, about Socrates."

  Sierra considered. Her information was that Anytus was already riling people up about Socrates--

  "And what are your grievances against the incessant talker?" Anytus inquired.

  "It is a matter of love more than politics," Sierra replied. Lies that were closest to the truth were usually the most convincing.

  Anytus eyed her. "He has turned your young man against you?"

  "Actually, it is an older man whose affections are at stake. He cares more for Socrates than--"

  Anytus waved off the explanation. "You may be speaking of lust not love, then -- but I do not need to know your personal affairs, any more than you need to know mine. But it is interesting that your grievance is personal .... Mine is, as well. He has turned my son against me!"

  "How so? If you do not mind my asking." So now Anytus was getting to the nub of this.

  Anytus sighed, stopped, looked up at the sky, and then at her figure. "You are not yet a mother, is that right?" he asked, softly, sadly.

  "No, not yet."

  "It is not an easy thing, bringing a son into the world," Anytus said. "There is an inevitable tension between father and son -- the poets have described this. Sons should not just embrace the lives and professions of their fathers."

  Sierra nodded. She agreed.

  "But if someone kidnaps a son -- kidnaps his mind, influences him unduly against the father -- then much damage can be done. The relationship can be wounded beyond repair..."

  "Is that what Socrates did to your son?"

  Anytus nodded, unable to speak.

  Sierra regarded him. There were tears in the older man's eyes.

  Anytus recovered his voice. His face was set in a strange expression, intense but very calm. "Thank you," he said to Sierra. "Thank you. I believe I know why you came to me today. I am not usually a superstitious man, but your coming here today was no accident. You helped me see the way. I know, now, what I must do. Thank you."

  And he turned, and strode quickly away.

  "Wait..." Sierra started after him, then stopped. What had she just done? She had come here to defuse Anytus, and instead had just set the fuse burning.... She swallowed, attempting to understand. Her stupid talk about love and politics had gotten Anytus to focus on his anger. Why had she said that? It had seemed right, a way of getting Anytus to feel that he and she had something in common.... But the result was that, like some inescapable omen, Sierra's conversation with Anytus had just the reverse of the effect she had wanted...

  She looked after the receding figure. She could have killed Anytus, that would have been another way to stop this. Ever since Max had died before her eyes, killing seemed perversely more natural to her. But she was not a killer. And Alcibiades was right that, even with Anytus dead, someone else with an equally deep grievance against Socrates, personal or political, could foment the trial.... Socrates was that kind of person. He rubbed people the wrong way, even those who loved him...

  Maybe this way was really safer -- if the trial had to happen, let it happen, let it happen in the way history and she and everyone now involved in this knew it would happen. In that way, the most reliable measures could be taken to rescue Socrates.

  Of course, that still would be no help in keeping Alcibiades safe.

  * * *

  She walked back slowly to the latest secret place she was sharing with Alcibiades. Like many other such places, this turned out to be not so secret....

  She met Antisthenes on the road. He was Socrates' oldest student, now in league with Alcibiades. She had only a slight recollection of Antisthenes in her studies -- he started the Cynic school of philosophy after Socrates' death, but most of his writings had been lost. He looked to be about the same age as Alcibiades. He knew Sierra. Well, she could only hope that Antisthenes would write nothing about what was now going on. Or, if he did, that that would be among his writings that did not survive.

  He was running with two other men. "Alcibiades was attacked. He was worried about you--"

  "Is he safe?"

  Antisthenes nodded. "Yes. He escaped with just a scratch on his arm. I am going to warn the others. Do not go back there."

  "Do you know where he is now?"

  "I do not. But when I see him, he will be happy to hear that you are unharmed. Where should I tell him you--"

  "Tell him I will find him, and not to worry," Sierra said.

  The three men resumed their run.

  Sierra considered her options. Alcibiades could be in any one of half a dozen secret places she knew about....

  But there was only one place that only he and she knew about.... The house with the chairs.

  * * *

  She approached warily. She could see no sign of Alcibiades or anyone outside or inside the house, from where she stood. She moved closer, and heard nothing. She applied her palm to the unobtrusive part of the door frame which she knew would receive her print. She had installed it on Heron's instruction. She had programmed it to admit only Alcibiades and her. This gave her some relief now -- no one unauthorized could enter. But that did not mean that no one dangerous could enter, from the outside or the inside via the chairs.

  But the two chairs on the inside were empty, as was the room around it.... She sat heavily against a wall. How long should she wait here for Alcibiades?

  One of the chairs made a noise, as if in answer.

  It was the chair's way of announcing another chair's imminent arrival. She had heard sounds like this before.

  She walked out the door and looked at the world beyond.

  But the heart of her attention was inside the house, on the cessation of sounds that would tell her the new chair's arrival was complete.

  * * *

  She reentered gingerly.

  Andros would have to be arriving here sooner or later, for this was the only showroom -- that's how she thought of these places -- that presumably existed in this part of the world. Of course, Andros might well have come from this golden age of Athens to begin with ... though Socrates in the dialog certainly appeared to be meeting Andros for the first time....

  "Heron!"

  The engineer laughed sourly. "You seem surprised -- whom were you expecting?"

  "Andros."

  "Ah, well," was all Heron said.

  "But you're not Andros, after all, are you."

  "I hope not," Heron replied. "I'm here to stop him."

  * * *

  The two shifted a bit around the room.

  Sierra focused on Heron's garb. It was a robe appropriate to the time, same as hers. Could there be a weapon somewhere in the folds? Of course there could. And Sierra had no idea what kinds of tiny, lethal devices Heron might have access to in his future world.

  "We have to stop stirring the pot," Heron said. "We have to simplify."

  "Why don't you just go back and tell your earlier self not to have invented time travel." Sierra tried to eye the door without Heron noticing, and saw that was impossible. Didn't really matter. She couldn't outrun a bullet, a laser, likely not even a well-thrown blade.

  "Time travel didn't write this dialog. Time travel didn't come to Socrates with the clone idea. One or more human beings did that."

  "One of whom was Andros," Sierra said the obvious, her mind still drumming on some way of getting out of this room....

  "We seem to be contributing more to this plan to save Socrates than Andros," Heron said. "We still have no idea what his plan was, is, other than to
save Socrates." Heron shook his head. "Maybe there was no plan, other than to get all of us involved -- Jonah, you, Alcibiades, Thomas, Appleton, me -- stumbling along, making up the plan, as we proceeded...."

  Sierra considered.

  Heron continued. "I feel very bad about your friend Max... Perhaps there is some way we can go back to Londinium in 150 AD and fix that. But it would very difficult, without causing more deaths in the long run."

  Sierra stared hard at Heron, and wondered again if he had a weapon. "Did you kill him? Was that you meant by 'simplifying'?"

  "No," Heron replied. "I could never--"

  She bolted for the door. A tendril of liquid agony ripped her right leg, and brought her to her knees. Heron did have a weapon--

  "Please, it is not safe for you out there," Heron said. "Stay with me--"

  She got to her feet, and took a wobbly step towards Heron. She wobbled sideways, backwards, sideways--

  "You should sit," Heron said, concerned. "Your leg is almost paralyzed now. You will not be able to walk anywhere on it."

  She took another jellied step, wobbled back, sideways again, almost fell, lurched sideways .... and hoisted herself into the chair that she had maneuvered herself next to....

  "Don't do that." Heron leveled his weapon at her, but hesitated.

  One of Sierra's legs was no good, but both hands were fine. She typed in a code and the bubble went up.

  Heron's hand quivered. Then he went for the door.

  Of course, Sierra thought with jagged satisfaction, and massaged her insensate leg. You wouldn't risk damaging one of your precious chairs.

  * * *

  Sierra had had no time to ponder her destination in time. Her split second permitted a decision about just the basic coordinates ... past or future, near or far?

  The past was wrong. She couldn't risk running into herself. She chose future. Near the action. One month, if her sweating fingers had typed true.

  The bubble receded.

  She slowly eased herself out of the chair. Her leg was still dead. She had no idea how long it would take to come back to life, if ever. Her best hope on that score was that Heron had no reason to want her permanently disabled. Heron could have aimed for her head if he had wanted her dead.

  But what her leg meant for sure, right now, was that she couldn't move very fast, or far. She appreciated the depth of her predicament. Heron was likely able to trace the date of her arrival, with the equipment in one of the chairs where she had just been seated...

  Well, Heron was not in the room now. That at least was clear. But he could be outside, waiting for her. There was nothing she could do about that. The only way she could avoid Heron's weapon if he were outside right now would be for her to immediately try another skip with the chair.... But that would only delay confronting the same problem.

  Painfully, Sierra moved toward the door. There was certainly no point remaining in the room, a lame duck...

  But where was Alcibiades most likely to be? The answer depended on this exact date.... Sierra moved outside, dragging her leg.

  No bullet or scorching laser hit her. Just a damp night, colder than when she had left. But Sierra breathed it in, gratefully, and did her best to leave the premises behind her... Her leg felt like maybe it was beginning to regain a little sensation...

  She hobbled down the road towards Athens. She found a fairly good stick along the way, but the going was still very slow. She decided to investigate the closest of Alcibiades' secret places. It was not very far, and was as good a place as any to start.

  Several men who looked familiar were in front of the dwelling. She tried to approach without making noise, but lost her footing and slipped in the brush. The men saw her. She regained her feet and stood her ground. There was no point in trying to run and falling on her face.

  They recognized her.

  "Where is Alcibiades?" she asked. "Is he safe?"

  "He is in Athens."

  "Do you know what the date is?" she asked.

  "It is the night of Socrates."

  * * *

  "It takes almost an hour, by foot, to reach the prison," one of Alcibiades' men told Sierra.

  "What time is it right now?" she asked.

  "The sun set a few hours ago," he replied. "Would you like us to carry you to the prison?"

  Sierra considered. She saw no horses. These men were likely her best bet. She nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

  Of all the nights to arrive with a bad leg, she thought. But she realized that Heron probably had set all of his chairs to arrive tonight, regardless of what she had commanded.

  * * *

  The trek took longer than expected. Sierra rubbed her leg. It was beginning to feel better. "I think I can walk now," she told her escorts.

  The men put her down carefully.

  She walked a few feet, and felt a rush of sensation. She stopped, then walked again. She nodded. "How much further is the prison?"

  "Very close."

  * * *

  The prison was not what Sierra had expected. She realized she had no idea exactly what the prison of Socrates looked like, but this was little more than a house.

  At least it wasn't a cave on a hilltop overlooking the acropolis, as some historians had claimed. Sierra was not sure her legs could have risen to that occasion...

  Alcibiades' men suggested they all hang back, and watch. Sierra's pulse was now racing far too quickly for her to do that. The men, deferential to the end, do not try to stop her. She walked towards the house.

  There were several other men in front. Presumably Crito would be able to bribe or talk his way past them. Or perhaps he had done that already. Sierra did not know the exact time of any of the events that had happened or were supposed to have happened tonight.

  She was sure that there was no one in front of the prison who looked liked Alcibiades. Was he already inside with Socrates?

  She trembled with the thought that Alcibiades might not have arrived here at all--

  One of the men in front of the prison looked in her direction. She caught her breath but continued to walk forward.

  "Is it possible for me to visit with the prisoner?" she asked one of the men, in her politest Greek. "I wanted to say farewell."

  The man, armed with a long knife, regarded her. "Disrobe."

  She thought for a second.

  "Disrobe if you wish to enter," the man repeated.

  She could not be certain that Alcibiades' men were where she had left them. Nor could she be sure that they would come to her aid, if these prison guards tried to take advantage of her disrobing.... But she had to see what was happening inside, see if Alcibiades was there.... She slipped off her robe. She hoped there was nothing about her body that would give away her mid-twenty-first century origin. She was shaved, but she did not believe that was completely alien to this time....

  "You may enter," the guard said.

  She thanked him, put her robe back on, and walked inside.

  * * *

  The lighting was minimal -- just the little moonlight that leaked in, supported by a few flickers of candles. The layout was what Sierra had seen in other Greek dwellings. A hall with several adjoining rooms. A second floor with what she assumed were bedrooms. A courtyard in the middle without roof, with entrances from the inside that were open ... She could smell the night air almost as keenly inside as out. An image popped into her mind from the adventures she had seen on so many screens in her life in the future: a helicopter overhead, hovering above the open courtyard, reeling out a swaying ladder that Socrates could climb, and make good his escape... Of course, for that to work, Socrates had to want to make that climb...

  There was something different in the smell of this house, this prison of Socrates, if that's what it was. This place smelled ... more intensely lived in than the other places back here in which Sierra had spent time... Well, Socrates was supposed to have lived here almost a month, waiting for that damned ship from Delos, for that hemlock--

&n
bsp; A man emerged from one of the rooms. An elderly man--

  Not Socrates.

  He looked at Sierra. His eyes were teary, his face was puffy. He nodded at her, then shook his head in the most hopeless, hapless motion she had ever seen. He walked past her and out of the house.

  Was this Crito? Stunned, defeated, depleted to the core that his old friend had turned down a perfect plan for escape? But not perfect enough by Socrates' standards. Because -- according to Plato -- Socrates couldn't abide the label of cowardice of the soul that such an escape would have branded him with for all posterity...

  "Ampharete!" Alcibiades stepped out of a room, and pulled her into his arms.

  She kissed and hugged him, and wept.

  "I thought it better that Crito did not see me," Alcibiades said softly, and brushed her face with his palm. "I let him talk to Socrates alone. I saw no point in intruding. Better to leave that aspect of the Platonic tale intact for history."

  Sierra nodded. She realized that Alcibiades looked pale, uneasy. "What is wrong?" she asked, though she knew that these circumstances were enough to short-circuit the strongest soul.

  "Would you like to meet Socrates now?" Alcibiades replied.

  * * *

  The two walked down the hall. Sierra looked at Alcibiades for some indication of what to expect. His face said nothing, except it was too distressed to communicate anything else.

  Socrates was standing at the portal of his room. He looked more mundane, less angelic, than Sierra had expected, though she realized those expectations were reflections of history and myth not reality. Had she passed this man on the street -- in third millennium AD New York or third century BC Athens -- she would not have given him a second look. Only Alcibiades' demeanor told her this was Socrates. But that was more than enough.

  Alcibiades introduced her to his erstwhile mentor. History had not indicated much about Socrates' attitude toward women, other than he was married, but had no women students. Sierra caught the look in his eye. Socrates was a man, even on the edge of his death bed, who enjoyed women. Interesting that history had been largely mute about that. Likely the work of Plato...