Time Travel Omnibus Volume 2

by Anthology

  “I am my brother’s keeper,” she said. “I did not keep him well enough.” And nothing Catherine or Margaret or Michael said would change Joan’s mind. They soon caught a glimpse of the determination and stubbornness that propelled Joan into the heart of the French army.

  Joan grew angry when she read about the latter half of the twentieth century and the entirety of the twenty-first, two eras marked by a general disregard for the nations they called the “Third World” coupled with an almost manic desire to make money regardless of the expense to others or the effect on the environment. She learned how national governments were decreasing in significance in proportion to the rise of the multinational corporations with their climate-controlled bio-domes that housed their employees and provided all the amenities to support a comfortable lifestyle. She read of the early space programs in the twentieth century and the early twenty-first. And of their abandonment in the middle of the twenty-first century as “inefficient and nonproductive,” even when those programs were studying ways to protect the earth from the massive asteroid strike that many scientists were predicting before the end of the twenty-second century.

  When her three teachers thought she was ready, they left the research complex that housed not only the rooms in which Joan lived and studied and the garden where she often prayed, but also the device informally known as Hawking’s Arrow. The Arrow was named in honor of the legendary physicist’s reference to “time’s arrow” and its unidirectional flight into the future.

  They traveled throughout the world, visiting places of cultural, historic, or environmental significance. Joan saw Paris, with L’Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. She visited the Vatican and rode the canals of Venice, now much smaller than it used to be due to a rise in the water level. She toured the United States and parts of Central and South America, charmed by the scenic beauty, the strange animals and the strangeness of their big cities. She also visited lands plagued by famine and disease, wartorn landscapes, burned swathes of Amazon rainforest and land stripped of its valuable topsoil through the process of stripmining. Almost a year to the day from her reprieve from death, Joan was ready to begin.

  6

  Wearing clothing carefully selected to appeal to young activists and the environmentally conscious—hand-woven trousers, a lightweight cotton shirt and sturdy walking shoes—the young woman who called herself Jehanne Dark started out by speaking to select audiences on college campuses, at Save-the-Earth rallies, and fund-raising dinners for victims of the almost daily natural disasters. Her words, delivered with the passion of her conviction, caught fire in the hearts of her listeners.

  In the background, Michael, Margaret, and Catherine watched as their protégé quickly outstripped even their best expectations. She caught the attention of the media, and soon a camera crew followed Jehanne wherever she went. Her Campaign to Save the Earth became the hottest story in all the media formats. Her following grew, and more and more people all over the world took to heart her few basic principles:

  “The world was here before you. You must respect its sanctity as if it were a holy place, for it is.

  “You do not stand alone in the world. Your neighbors share it with you, and they will share your burdens if you but ask. Their poverty makes you poor. You must give to them so that you will in turn receive from them.

  “The world does not need to be conquered or mastered. It needs to be healed.”

  Billions of people heard Jehanne exhort the multinationals to become accountable and to treat the resources that made them wealthy with respect. Little by little, a few changes became apparent. One company declared a moratorium on its deforestation of the rainforest, and planted new trees and other plants to replenish the depleted earth. Another company closed its sweatshops, redistributed its force in new, state-of-the-art workplaces, raised the minimum wage, and instituted free health care and assistance in living expenses. Armies of young people took a year off from college to work in environmentally troubled areas. Another “army” of consumers used the pressure of their buying power to force other companies to become accountable.

  “We must find a way to heal the hole in the sky,” she remonstrated at a rally in New York’s Central Park. Almost immediately, funds appeared for studying the ozone layer. A new Global Warming conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland, with Jehanne as the keynote speaker. This time, a universal accord was adopted and signed by every attending country—and even some that did not bother to send delegates.

  Toward the end of the year, the first of the letters started arriving. Initially, Michael, Margaret and Catherine read them to Joan, finding them amusing and also inferring from them that Joan’s campaign was closing in on its objective. They stopped reading them when they discovered her crying uncontrollably in the garden, the latest letter clutched in her hand.

  “They are calling me an alarmist,” she sobbed through her tears. “They say I only want the fame, that I am a ‘glory hound.’ ”

  Catherine placed her hands on Joan’s shoulders and worked the aching muscles in Joan’s back, forcing her to relax a little. “These letters only mean that you are succeeding. They are running scared.”

  “Desperate people do desperate things,” Joan said, her voice shaking with anger, hurt, and something else Catherine reluctantly identified as fear.

  7

  The bullet that ended Joan’s second life came during her speech at the first anniversary rally of the Campaign to Save the Earth. Joan stood tall on the outdoor podium and looked out over a sea of faces and signs proclaiming “Love the World!” “Feed the Hungry, Feed Your Soul,” “Care for the Earth: It’s Your Job,” and other pithy slogans. In the year since she delivered her first speech, she had learned how to work a crowd, how to win their minds by securing their hearts and loyalty. Already, small signs that her agenda to heal the earth was taking effect began appearing: new growth in the rainforest, indications that the hole in the ozone layer might actually seal itself in a few years, a new understanding of the need to preserve the great predators, and a resurgence of several endangered species.

  As contributions came pouring in, scientists were able to study the increasing instability of the tectonic plates and form some tentative theories on how to relieve the internal stress of the planet.

  The crowd was eager to hear her speech, delivered with the simple fervor of a French peasant girl from Domrémy but expressing ideas both sophisticated and tactically sound, ideas they could latch on to. Joan gave her audience a purpose and the will to carry it out.

  “I do not expect everyone of you to believe as I do, that God wills us to shepherd his creation on its journey to perfection. But I do expect you to believe in the existence of good and evil. I expect you to choose the side of good and to fight evil wherever you find it. Evil’s power is destroying the earth, and only the power of good can defeat it.”

  A soft thud of displaced air marked the bullet’s path from the gun to her abdomen, a coward’s shot that lacked the finesse of the instantaneous kill from a head or heart shot. She crumpled, her hand clutching the bloody wound that opened up just below her waist. In an instant, Michael was there, followed closely by Catherine and Margaret. She lay on the ground now, gasping for breath as she tried to grab control of the pain.

  “Lie still, ma cherie,” Catherine whispered, “we can tend to you.” She reached for the medical kit she carried with her as a para-doctor, licensed to use certain common medications in emergency situations. She pulled out a preloaded syringe. “This will take away the pain and help you relax,” she said.

  “No!” Joan said. “I do not want to rest yet. That will come soon enough.” Her words came slowly, forced out through a wall of pain that separated her from the people hovering over her.

  “Get those cameras out of here!” Michael snapped, motioning toward several reporters with their micro-cams who had managed to close in on the dying woman.

  “Let them stay!” Joan said. “I still have something to say. L
et them give my message to the world.”

  Margaret looked at Joan, tears already running down her cheek. She recognized the gut wound for the death sentence it was. “She’s right,” Margaret said. “Let her make the next few minutes mean something.”

  Michael took Joan’s hand in his. “Are you certain?” he said, his voice cracking.

  “I am.”

  The cameras zoomed in closer as Jehanne/Joan haltingly but with determination delivered the remainder of her speech. As her life blood seeped slowly away from a wound too massive to repair, she braced herself against the growing agony. She forced herself to remain conscious enough to finish exhorting a now utterly silent crowd to dedicate themselves to their brothers and sisters all over the world and to the preservation of the world.

  “It is a worthy way to spend your life,” she said. “It is a cause worth dying for.”

  Finally, she fell silent, lost in the final tumble toward death, yet struggling to hold on for as long as she could. Her three friends, constant companions of hers for almost two years, knelt beside her. Michael held her upper body in his arms, raising her up a little to ease her raspy breathing and letting her head rest against his chest. On either side, Margaret and Catherine held her hands and stroked her face with the tenderness of lovers, for all three had fallen in love with her soul.

  All three wept silently, their faces wet with tears that would not abate.

  Joan’s hand suddenly gripped Catherine’s. She tried to moisten her lips, now nearly bloodless. Catherine reached behind her and felt inside her kit for a wet-swab. She snapped the seal on the swab with one hand, releasing the moisture into the small sponge set on the end of a four-inch stick. She swabbed the inside of Joan’s mouth and coated her lips. Joan pulled Catherine close until the blonde woman’s ear was nearly touching Joan’s mouth. A few seconds later, Catherine pulled away from Joan and kissed her forehead.

  “It will be as you wish. I swear it,” she said.

  Joan’s face lit up with a beatific smile then, and her eyes focused on something just beyond her friends. “Jesu!” she breathed, and surrendered her will and her soul to the inescapable sweetness of the world beyond. This time, she thought, she felt the touch of feathery wings wrap themselves around her soul.

  One viewing screens all around the world, billions of people saw the martyrdom of Jehanne Dark. Watching with both fascination and horror, more than one person exclaimed, “We have murdered a saint!”

  8

  Joan had a state funeral, though she was buried in a simple wooden box according to the wishes she had expressed at one time to Michael. Her death served as the final catalyst, sparking her movement to unprecedented activity. Leaders stepped forward to take her place; having seen her death in great detail, they had become fearless.

  When it seemed that they could take some time away from Joan’s campaign, Catherine asked Michael to activate Hawking’s Arrow again.

  “Are you planning on going somewhere?” he asked, a hint of a smile showing on his face, the first one since Joan’s death.

  “Yes,” Catherine said. “You and Margaret are welcome to come along.” Since knowing Joan, the formal hierarchy among the trio had broken down. They had been coworkers, military researchers attached to the Hawking machine, as well as its most experienced users. But Joan had made them friends and comrades.

  “Does this have something to do with your promise to her?” Margaret asked.

  Catherine nodded. She looked hesitantly at both Michael and Margaret, then took a deep breath, speaking rapidly as she exhaled. “I’ve been hearing her voice,” she said, and waited for Michael or Margaret to rationalize the experience away. Instead, both of them looked relieved.

  “So have I,” said Michael.

  “I have, too,” echoed Margaret.

  “Then you must know where we’re going and what we’re going to do,” Catherine said.

  “She thinks—thought—he could be salvaged if we snatched him before he quit the military and retired to his estates. We owe it to her to try,” Margaret said.

  “I agree,” Michael added. “We point the arrow at 1435,” he said as they made their way toward the room that housed the machine.

  “Gilles de Rais,” Catherine announced, “we come to you in the name of Joan the Maid.”

  WALK TO THE MOON

  Sean McMullen

  Meat was bought at a high price by the Middle Pleistocene hominids of the Iberian Peninsula. Large prey meant more meat, yet large prey was very dangerous. The pressure to hunt was unrelenting, for the hominids were almost entirely carnivorous, but they lived well because their technology was the most advanced in the world.

  It is unusual for a linguist to be called for in a murder investigation, especially an undergraduate linguist. Had my uncle Arturo not been in charge, and had I not been staying at his house at the time, I would not have become involved at all. He told me little as he escorted me into the Puerto Real clinic and took me to a meeting room.

  On a monitor screen was a girl in a walled garden. Crouching in a corner, she had a fearful, hunted look about her. I could see that she wore a blanket, that her skin was olive-brown, and that her features were bold and heavy. Oddly enough, it took a while for me to notice the most remarkable about her: she had no forehead!

  “Who—I mean what is she?” I exclaimed.

  “That’s what a lot of people want to know,” replied my uncle. “I think she is a feral girl with a deformed head. She was found this morning, on a farm a few kilometers north of here.”

  “Has she said anything?” I asked, then added, “Can she talk?”

  “Carlos, why do you think I called you? This is in a clinic where the staff are quite good at dealing with foreign tourists who don’t speak Spanish, but his girl’s language stopped them cold.”

  “So she does speak?”

  “She seems to use words; that is why you are here. Before you ask, she is locked in the walled garden at the centre of the clinic because she can’t stand being indoors. We need to communicate with her, but we also need discretion. Someone senior in the government is involved. DNA tests are being done.”

  I was about to commence my third year at university, studying linguistics. Being continually short of money, I would drive my wreck of a motor scooter down to Cadiz every summer, stay with my uncle, hire a board and go windsurfing. By now I owed Uncle Arturo for three such holidays, and this was the first favour he had asked in return. My mind worked quickly: love child of government minister, hit on the head, abandoned in the mountains, DNA tests being done to establish the parents’ identity.

  “There are better linguists than me,” I said.

  “But I know I can trust you. For now we need total discretion.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, what do I do?”

  “She must be hungry. When a blackbird landed in the garden she caught it and ate it. Raw.”

  I swallowed. She sounded dangerous.

  “Maybe you could help her build a fire, roast a joint of meat,” my uncle suggested.

  “Me?” I exclaimed. “Cook a roast? I’ve never even boiled an egg.”

  “Well then, time to learn,” he laughed, without much mirth.

  It turned out that I had three advantages over the clinic’s staff and my uncle’s police: long hair, a beard and a calf-length coat. It made me look somehow reassuring to the girl, but it was days before I realized why.

  I entered the garden with a bundle of wood and a leg of lamb. The girl’s eyes followed me warily. I stopped five metres from her and sat down. I put a hand on my chest and said, “Carlos.” She did not reply. I shrugged, then began to pile twigs together in front of me. The girl watched. I reached into a pocket and took out a cigarette lighter, then flicked it alight. The girl gasped and shrank back against the wall. To her it probably looked as if the flame was coming out of my fist. I calmly lit the twigs, slipped the lighter back into my pocket, and piled larger sticks on to the fire.

  My original
plan had been to roast the meat, then gain the girl’s trust by offering her some. I placed the leg in the flames—but almost immediately she scampered forward and snatched it out.

  “Butt!” she snapped, leaving no doubt that the word meant something like fool.

  I shrugged and sat back, then touched my chest again and said, “Carlos.” This time she returned the gesture and said, “Els.”

  Els stoked the fire until a bed of coals was established. Only now did she put the joint between two stones, just above the coals. Fat began to trickle down and feed the flames. We shared a meal of roast lamb around sunset and by then I had collected about two dozen words on the Dictaphone in my pocket, mostly about fire, meat, and sticks. Els began to look uneasy again. I had made a fire, I had provided meat, and it was fairly obvious what she expected next.

  I stood up, said “Carlos,” then gestured to the gate and walked away. The perplexity on Els’s face was almost comical as I watched the video replay a few minutes later.

  “What have you learned so far?” asked my uncle as the debriefing began.

  Two other people were present, and had been introduced as Dr Tormes and Marella. The woman was in her thirties and quite pretty, while Tormes was about ten years older.

  “Firstly, Els trusts me a little,” I pointed out.

  “I thought she was supposed to accept you as another prisoner,” said my uncle.

  “She doesn’t understand the idea of being a prisoner,” I replied. “She calls me Carr. Loss is her word for fire. For her ‘Carlos’ seems to be ‘Carr who makes fire’.”

  “So, you made a fire after introducing yourself as a firemaker,” said Tormes.

  “Yes. All her words are single syllable, and she has not spoken a sentence more than five words long. Intonation and context seem important in her language, though.”