by Anthology
“What do we do?” I said. “We can’t walk through the damn thing. And gods don’t fiddle with gates, wondering how they open.”
Before Miriam could answer, one of the sentries rushed forward and pulled at a leather thong. The gate swung open. He had not, of course, understood the language of the gods, but our intentions were obvious and the mere fact that I had voiced some strange words must have spurred him to action.
We made our way towards the temple. I prayed that the archers on the walls of Plataea would be too overawed by the sight of a pair of semi-transparent beings to fire any arrows.
We stood off about a hundred yards from the temple, where we had a clear view into the interior, and Miriam began recording. Half-hidden in the heavy shadows thrown by the columns we could see a translucent form operating the instrument with the metallic flaps, which was possibly some sort of heliographic recording device, though it looked like something knocked-up in a Swiss toymaker’s workshop for an Anibian prince. The stand was fashioned of polished wood covered in hieroglyphics and there were lead weights on plumblines which balanced wooden arms connected to cogged wheels. Behind the operator, hanging from the pillars, were two elongated scrolls of painted parchment, one with a picture of a dog’s body with a monkey’s head, the other depicting some sort of wading bird.
As we stood, both he and us, recording each other—a situation that struck me as rather ironical—another wraith-like figure appeared, wearing a long, flowing robe and decorated headcloth. He whispered to his companion, then went back into a side-room. I was sure that the directional mike would capture that whisper, which when amplified would reveal their language. Miriam gestured to me without speaking and we stopped recording, making our way back.
The gate had been left open for us and we passed through without any problem, but on the other side of the palisade it was a different matter. Word had got around that the gods were abroad and a huge crowd had gathered, though there was a wide path through the middle of it leading to the tower. I could see John on the ramparts of the watchtower with a weapon in his hands.
“Okay,” said Miriam, “let’s go, Stan. Don’t look back . . .”
I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. All I wanted to do was reach the tower, safely. As we walked down the avenue a murmuring broke out amongst the troops, which grew in volume to uncoordinated chants. I hadn’t any doubt we were being petitioned for various miracles, both collective and individual. Two-thirds of the way along there was a horrible incident. A young man broke from the crowd and threw himself at my feet, attempting to clutch my ankle. Before he could lay a hand on me, he was pinned to the mud by several spears, thrown by his comrades. I wanted to be sick on the spot as I watched him squirming in the dust like some wounded porcupine. We made the tower without any further problems and shortly afterwards the crowd broke up as Spartan officers moved amongst them with whips. The young man’s body was removed and as he was carried away I wondered what had made him so desperate as to brave touching a god. Maybe his mother or father was terminally ill? Or a close friend had been killed whom he wished us to raise from the dead? Or perhaps he was just a helot, a slave, who thought we could free him from the oppression of his Spartan masters with a wave of our hands? Poor bastard.
Later, I went to Miriam and asked her about our friends in the temple. We had already mentioned the word Egyptian to each other, though all we had as evidence for that were the hieroglyphics and the pictures. A group of future ancient Egyptian revivalists? Just because they wore the costume and carried the artefacts didn’t make them residents from the banks of the Nile. Though there didn’t seem any logical reason for a masquerade, cults are seldom founded on reason, or by rational thinkers.
“The bird picture was an ibis,’ said Miriam, “and the dog-monkey . . . well, the ancient Egyptian god Zehuti was represented by both those symbolic characters.”
“Zehuti?” I knew a little of the culture in question, but this was a new one to me.
“Sorry, you probably know him as Thoth—Zehuti is his older name. The Greeks identified him with Hermes, which makes sense. Hermes the messenger—a traveller?”
“Anything else?”
“Yes—Thoth was also the patron of science and inventions, the spokesman of the gods and their keeper of the records. Thoth invented all the arts and sciences, including surveying, geometry, astronomy, soothsaying, magic . . . do I need to go on?”
“No. I get the picture. If you wanted a god of time travel, Thoth fits the bill quite nicely. So what do we do now?”
She gave me a grim smile.
“Wait. What else? Once you’ve transmitted the recording back to base, we wait until they come up with definites.”
So we did what we were best, and worst, at: waiting.
One evening the three of us were sitting, more or less in a rough circle, engaged in frivolous tasks. I was actually doing nothing. The stars were out, above us, and I could hear the snuffling of livestock and the clank of pots from down below. The area around Plataea was becoming as unsavoury as the no man’s land of World War Two, with cesspits filling the air with an appalling stink and churned mud giving the landscape an ugly, open-wound appearance. We had been discussing our situation. Something was preventing the outer ring of our vortex from going any further, and base believed that what was stopping it was another vortex, coming from the other direction, the distant past. The two whirlpools were touching each other, and neither could proceed before the other retreated. Our friends were indeed early Egyptians. It had taken a while for this idea to sink in, but when I thought deeply about it, it was not at all far-fetched.
On a simple level, time travel involved a psychological state induced by the use of darkness and light, resulting in the fusion of infinites, of space and time. The dark and light became unified into a substance which formed a shape. That shape was common enough in the night sky: a spiral on a flat plane, moving outwards from the centre of the group, some of whom remained behind to form an anchor point for the vortex. The base-camp group. The room in which we had begun the vigil was no longer a room, but something else: a super-physical universe that possibly exists in all minds at some level of perception. There was no technological reason why an earlier civilization could not have made the same mental discovery. On the other hand, people of our rank were still not privy to the source of the discovery, and it could well be that the knowledge had come from the past. Egyptian documents perhaps, only recently decoded? I remembered something about mirrors being used to flood the dark interior passages of the pyramids with light from the sun.
A horrible thought occurred to me.
“We’re not going to stay here, until they go back?”
Miriam shrugged.
“I don’t know. I’m awaiting instructions from base.”
“Now look, we’re the ones that are here. Not them.”
“You know how it is, as well as I do, Stan.”
I stared at her.
“I know how it is,” I said, bitterly.
Her phantom features produced a faint smile.
I lay awake that night, thinking about the stalemate I had got myself into. Egyptians? If they had had time travel for so long, why hadn’t they visited future centuries? But then, of course, they probably had and we had run screaming from them, just as the goatboy had fled from us. They probably had a similar policy to ourselves: no interference, just record and return. So, on their umpteenth journey into the future, they had come to a halt, suddenly, and had no doubt come to the same conclusion as we had: someone was blocking the path.
It wasn’t difficult either to see how such a discovery might be lost to future civilizations. Hadn’t certain surgical techniques been lost too? Time travel would undoubtedly have been in the hands of an elite: probably a priesthood. Some pharaoh, his brain addled as the result of a long lineage of incestuous relationships, had destroyed the brotherhood in a fit of pique; or the priests had been put to death by invading barbarians, their
secret locked in stone vaults.
On the current front, the Plataeans were still one jump ahead of the Spartans. They had abandoned their mining operations and instead had built another crescent-shaped wall inside their own, so that when the ramp was finally completed, the Spartans were faced with a second, higher obstacle. Peltasts tried lobbing spears over the higher wall, only to find the distance was too great. Archidamus had his men fill the gap between the two walls with faggots and set light to it, but a chance storm doused this attempt to burn down the city. We got a few indignant looks from the Spartans after that. As gods, we were responsible for the weather. The war trumpets of the invaders filled the air with bleating notes which we felt sure were a criticism of us and our seeming partiality towards the defenders.
Finally, battering rams were employed, over the gap between the walls, but the Plataeans had a device—a huge beam on chains—which they dropped on to the ram-headed war machines and snapped off the ends.
Archidamus gave up. He ordered yet another wall to be built, outside the palisade of stakes, and left part of his army to guard it. Winter was beginning to set in and the king had had enough of the inglorious mudbath in which he had been wallowing. He went home, to his family in the south.
The majority of the Egyptians also withdrew at this point. One of them remained behind.
We received our orders from base.
“One of us must stay,” said Miriam, “until a relief can be sent. If we all go back, the vortex will recede with us and the Egyptians will move forward, gain on us.”
“A Mexican stand-off,” I said, disgustedly.
“Right. We can’t allow them the opportunity to invade the territory we already hold . . .”
“Shit,” I said, ignoring a black look from John, “now we’ve got a cold war on our hands. Even time isn’t safe from ownership. First it was things, then it was countries . . . now it’s time itself. Why don’t we build a bloody great wall across this year, like Archidamus, and send an army of guards to defend it?”
Miriam said, “Sarcasm won’t help at this stage, Stan.”
“No, I don’t suppose it will, but it makes me feel good. So what happens now? We draw straws?”
“I suggest we do it democratically.” She produced three shards of pottery that she had gathered from the ground below, and distributed one to each of us.
“We each write the name of the person we think most competent to remain behind,” she explained, “and then toss them in the middle.”
“Most competent—I like the diplomatic language,” I muttered. John, I knew, would put down his own name. He was one of those selfless types, who volunteered for everything. His minor household gods were Duty and Honour. He would actually want to stay.
I picked up my piece of pot. It was an unglazed shard depicting two wrestlers locked in an eternal, motionless struggle, each seemingly of equal strength and skill, and each determined not to give ground. I turned it over and wrote JOHN in clear letters, before placing it, picture-side up, in the middle of the ring.
Two other pieces clattered against mine. Miriam sorted through them, turning them over.
My name was on two of them.
I turned to John.
“Thanks,” I said.
“It had to be somebody. You’re the best man for the job.”
“Bullshit,” I said. I turned to Miriam. “What if I refuse to stay? I’ll resign, terminate my contract.”
Miriam shook her head. “You won’t do that. You’d never get another trip and while you get restless in the field, you get even worse at home. I know your type, Stan. Once you’ve been back a couple of weeks you’ll be yelling to go again.”
She was right, damn her. While I got bored in the field, I was twice as bad back home.
“I’m not a type,” I said, and got up to go below. Shortly afterwards, Miriam followed me.
“I’m sorry, Stan,” She touched my arm. “You see it for what it is—another political attempt at putting up fences by possessive, parochial old farts. Unless I go back and convince them otherwise, they’ll be sending death squads down the line to wipe out the Egyptians. You do understand?”
“So it had to be me.”
“John’s too young to leave here alone. I’ll get them to replace you as soon as I can—until then . . .”
She held out her slim hand and I placed my own slowly and gently into her grip. The touch of her skin was like warm silk.
“Goodbye,” I said.
She went up the ladder and John came down next.
I said coldly, “What is this? Visiting day?”
“I came to say goodbye,” he said, stiffly.
I stared hard at him, hoping I was making it difficult, hoping the bastard was uncomfortable and squirming.
“Why me, John? You had a reason.”
He suddenly looked very prim, his spectral features assuming a sharp quality.
“I thought about volunteering myself, but that would have meant you two going back alone—together, that is . . .” He became flustered. “She’s a married woman, Stan. She’ll go back to her husband and forget you.”
I rocked on my heels.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Miriam. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”
I stared at him, finding it difficult to believe he could be so stupid.
“You’re a fool, John. The worst kind of fool. It’s people like you, with twisted minds, that start things like that war out there. Go on—get out of my sight.”
He started to climb the ladder, then he looked down and gave me a Parthian shot. “You put my name on your shard. Why should I feel guilty about putting yours?”
And he was right, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to jerk the ladder from under him and breaking his bloody neck.
They were gone within the hour, leaving me to haunt the Greeks all on my own, a solitary ghost moving restlessly around the parapet of the tower. I saw my Egyptian counterpart once, in the small hours, as a shimmering figure came out into the open to stare at my prison. I thought for a moment he or she was going to wave again, but nothing so interesting happened, and I was left to think about my predicament once more. I knew how slowly things moved back home. They had all the time in the world. I wondered whether Egyptians could learn to play chess. It was a pity Diogenes wasn’t yet alive, or I might have been tempted to wander down to Corinth. He would certainly have enjoyed a game, providing I stayed out of his sun. Me and Diogenes, sitting on top of his barrel, playing chess a thousand years before the game was invented—that would have been something. Plato was a newborn babe in arms. Socrates was around, in his early forties, but who would want to play with that cunning man. Once he got the hang of it, you’d never win a game.
Flurries of snow began to drift in, over the mountains. The little Plataeans were in for a hard winter. I knew the result of the siege, of course. Three hundred Plataeans and seconded Athenians would make a break for it in a year’s time, killing the sentries left by Archidamus on the outer wall and getting away in the dark. All of them would make it, to Athens, fooling their pursuers into following a false trail, their inventive minds never flagging when it came to survival. Those Plataeans whose hearts failed them when it came to risking the escape, almost two hundred, would be put to death by the irate Spartans. The city itself would be razed. Perhaps the Spartans would learn something from the incident, but I doubted it. There was certainly a lot of patience around in the ancient world.
Patience. I wondered how much patience those people from the land of the pharaohs had, because it occurred to me that the natural movement of time was on their side. Provided we did nothing but maintain the status quo, standing nose to nose on the edges of our own vortices, they would gain, ever so gradually. Hour by hour, day by day, we were moving back to that place I call home.
We might replace our frontier guards, by one or by thousands, but the plain fact of the matter is we will eventually be pushed
back to where we belong. Why, they’ve already gained several months as it is . . . only another twenty-five centuries and I’ll be back in my own back yard.
Then again, I might receive that terrible message I have been dreading, which would turn me from being the Athenian I believe I am, into a Spartan. Which would have me laying down my scroll and taking up the spear and shield. A ghost-warrior from the future, running forth to meet a god-soldier from the past. I can only hope that the possible historical havoc such action might cause will govern any decision made back home. I can’t help thinking, however, that the wish for sense to prevail must have been in the lips of a million-million such as me, who killed or died in fields, in trenches, in deserts and jungles, on seas and in the air.
The odds are stacked against me.
ONE ONE THOUSAND
William Wood
“Do you read me?”
Aaron heard the voice but his thoughts were muddy, mired in something thick and still. Sleep maybe. Attempts to stretch his arms and legs, to roll . . . pointless. Like there was nothing to move.
“Come on, answer me, Aaron.”
Static popped in his ear. “Brad?”
“Yes, finally. What’s your status?”
“My . . . status . . .”
“Start simple. Harry said there would be some disorientation. Take a minute but not too long. CNN just said the last of the stars winked out. I’m not sure how long that gives us.”
Aaron opened his eyes, blinking repeatedly. Nothing to see. Only darkness.
“Talk to me, buddy.”
“Stars . . . wha—” He could feel his hands now. Air blew against his skin. His legs ached and his stomach hurt. He lay face down on something cold and spongy. Moving his hands along the surface, they seemed to catch and jump like balloons being rubbed together. “Where . . . am I, Brad?”
White noise flooded his ears in the absence of Brad’s hoarse Carolina drawl. “I was beginning to think I’d lost you, man. Just a second while I get these notes together.”