Meridian - A Novel In Time (The Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  He went into the anteroom and eyed the piles of clothing on the floor. It did not take long to ferret out which was his. At a little over six feet, his lanky frame could be destined for none other than the officer’s trousers Maeve had dug up for him. The matching long-sleeved Captain’s shirt even had the proper insignia on it. He started undressing, more intent on the Arabian headdress in his pile, complete with parallel gold circlets noting him as a Sherif. Rank has its privileges, he thought, even if he had been unable to assert his authority and prevent the others from coming. Something in him wanted company when he stepped through that portal. In spite of his misgivings, he was inwardly glad that Robert and Maeve would be coming along. Maeve’s presence, being a woman dressed in obvious male garb, could cause problems if they were discovered. But her no-nonsense approach to things, and the added insight she would undoubtedly bring on potential Outcomes and Consequences, would be a plus.

  They needed Nordhausen along for the history. He had buried himself in Lawrence’s book for the last forty minutes. It was Kelly he was worried about. Who else could run numbers if he came along? He decided to try and enlist the support of Maeve in the one battle that remained to be fought before they left.

  By the time he had donned his clothing, Jen was rushing back from the generator room. She was out of breath from climbing the stairs.

  “The intercom system doesn’t work,” she breathed, “so I had to use the stairs.”

  “Must be the storm,” said Paul. “Nothing we can do about it tonight. Sorry Jen, I hope you’re in shape.”

  She was staring at Paul in his long Arab robes. “What on earth? What’s going on?” She looked from Maeve to Paul, obviously confused. Maeve was oblivious, huddling with Nordhausen as the two of them were working out the details of their approach to the situation.

  Paul went over and took Jen by the arm, a bit pleased to have a brief moment with her like this. Somehow, the change of clothing imbued him with a sense of adventure. He had come to terms with his fear and apprehension and was determined to carry the mission through. Now the same exhilaration that had possessed Maeve a few moments ago seemed to infect him as well. He proffered a slight bow, warming to his role, with just the hint of flirtation in his manner. He was no longer Dr. Dorland, Chief Project Administrator. Now he was a Sherif of the desert, dark, mysterious and delighting in the secret he held in the palm of his hand that so confounded the young woman. She broke into a smile, and Dorland walked her toward the circular bank of control consoles, whispering as he went.

  “As you can see,” he said, “the mission parameters have changed. The launch time has been moved up twelve hours.”

  “What? Twelve hours?”

  “Yes. We’re trying something new.”

  Jen looked very surprised. “Can you change things this late? I thought we needed time to program everything.”

  “It’s all been planned,” Paul reassured her. “There were several alternate mission profiles worked up.” A little white lie would do no harm, he concluded. “How do you like my costume?”

  “How strange,” she smiled, but that was one thing she always liked about Dorland. He was a bit unpredictable.

  “And the professor and Miss Lindford are getting ready for the operation as well. We haven’t decided about Mr. Ramer yet. He’s still working up some numbers and I was hoping we could count on you and Tom to monitor things up here when we go down to the Arch.”

  “System Monitor? Me?” She took a deep breath, as if taking in the obvious implications of the position. It would be no small matter to ride shotgun on the main system terminals while the Arch was at full power.

  “You’re fully trained,” Dorland pressed on. “And frankly, you’ve shown the best record of any technician these last six months. I’ve…had my eye on you lately.” He smiled inwardly at the double meaning that he hoped would only be apparent to him. “I think you’re best qualified for the job. You’ll have Tom to watch the power levels in the generator room and perhaps Mr. Ramer here to see to the computers. Sorry about the intercom, but we still have the stairs.” He smiled as he gestured to the stairwell leading down to the power generators. “Once we start the experiment you’ll have approximately two hours on the system monitors. The important thing will be the retraction module, of course. You must be certain it reads green the whole time. If the readings fall into the yellow I want you to run the focal routines on terminal three. Can you remember that?”

  “Two hours?” Jen seemed a bit flushed with the responsibility he was handing her. “But the other team members won’t be here until at least six AM. Should I call them in now?”

  “I’m afraid there won’t be time for that. This will be a brief mission; just a little test, that’s all. We should be finished before four o’clock this morning…”

  The futility of what he was trying to do became more and more apparent to Paul as he spoke. How could he enlist Jen’s support and try to keep her in the dark about the real intentions of the mission? It wasn’t fair. She had heard the news about Palma, and would probably begin to put questions together in time. The more he tried to spin out his cover story, the more uncomfortable he became. At last he sighed with resignation and looked her straight in the eye.

  “You’ve heard the news, right Jen? So you know what’s at stake.”

  She gave him a perplexed look, but he could see that his point was hitting home. “So we’re going to see if we can do something. Kelly’s working up last minute numbers now.” He waited, watching her reaction closely. Bewilderment became fear, and then understanding. He forged on.

  “Watch the retraction module closely now, will you? We don’t want to lose our lifeline.” Paul smiled, reassuring her that all would be well and, as her features softened, he realized how very attracted he was to the woman, and how very stupid he had been all these months to hide behind his project title and do nothing about it. Somehow, the precipice he was slowly approaching in his own personal time line had emboldened him. He imagined himself sweeping the woman off her feet, a wild eyed Sherif of the desert felling her with a passionate kiss. Instead he reached out and touched her shoulder. “Thank you, Jen” he said. “I knew I could count on you. Now, tell Tom to take the Arch to 100 percent in ten minutes.”

  He caught a glimmer of bewilderment in her eyes and smiled again as he ushered her off toward the stair well. Something was suddenly tugging at his attention in the main console circle. Maeve was badgering Nordhausen and urging him to get into costume. Paul turned and saw that something well beyond Maeve’s overweening air of self-assertiveness was bothering the professor. He knew the man too well. Nordhausen seemed oblivious to her entreaties, and then he swiveled suddenly in his chair to look at Kelly where he was still fidgeting at the main data terminal.

  “Can we change the time?” His question had an edge of urgency in it.

  Kelly looked up, obviously frustrated. “What? Change the time? Are you kidding?”

  “What’s wrong?” Maeve’s eyes narrowed, and she folded her arms, giving Nordhausen an accusing stare.

  “Well, I was just thinking that we ought to give ourselves a little time to get settled in once we arrive and—”

  “What’s wrong, Robert?” Maeve was becoming fierce now, and the professor gave her a sheepish look. He scratched the back of his neck, and glanced at his volume of the Seven Pillars. Paul saw how his finger marked a place where he had been reading.

  “There was more than one train,” Nordhausen blurted out. “Just after they laid the charge at Kilometer 172 they were surprised by a train coming down from the north. No one seemed to see the damn thing in the rain, so they let it go by. The second train out of Amman came up from the south at mid-day, and a third was scheduled six hours later from the north out of Damascus. They were staggered on the single line, you see, about six hours apart.”

  “And…” Maeve looked as though she was ready to explode.

  “Well I’m not exactly sure which one we need to conce
rn ourselves with, that’s all.”

  He looked from one to the other, obviously flustered, but trying to muster what little remained of his dignity under Maeve’s adamant stare. “We might end up tampering with the wrong train…”

  Kelly dropped his pen.

  8

  Lawrence Berkeley Labs - 1:55 AM

  Paul passed a moment of great hesitation as the implications of this latest obstacle struck home. Three trains… All at Kilometer 172 on the tenth of November, 1917. Two passed through unscathed. One was blown up and derailed. If there had only been two trains the outcome would have been easy enough to decide. They would simply work to make an end of the first train and, that failing, they would labor to spare the second—the one that had been blown up according to Lawrence’s narrative. But three trains added just the extra measure of complication to the mission that could prove its undoing.

  “OK,” he said as his thoughts spilled over. “Let’s reason this thing out. Go get into costume, Robert. I’ll discuss this business with Maeve.”

  “Right.” Nordhausen was only too glad to extricate himself from the situation, and he slipped away as Paul settled into a chair, looking oddly out of place in his 19th century Arabian clothing against the backdrop of humming blue computer screens and 21st century technology. “Was there anything else in that note you can recall that might help us out here, Maeve?”

  “Nothing I can remember. Our visitor couldn’t write all these details down. I’m sure he meant to discuss this with us. They must have known about this potential complication.”

  “Of course they had to know, but we’ll just have to work it thorough. Let’s start with the first train. Suppose we manage to alert Lawrence’s men to its approach—even if that means we expose ourselves to a Prime Mover on the time line.”

  “That would be risky,” said Maeve.

  “Yes, but if they get the first train, then the derailment on the tracks will prevent the other two from getting through, or at least it will delay them. Lawrence’s boys will grab their booty and high-tail it out to the desert. The second train, the one that blows up as the history reads now, will be spared.”

  “How would we alert the Arabs without exposing ourselves?” Maeve was stubbornly trying to protect the Prime Mover from contamination. “If we go running up, shouting the alarm in English, it will certainly get Lawrence’s attention. We’d become entangled in the whole situation and retraction would be very difficult.”

  “Well, we don’t have to actually say anything. You’d be amazed at how effective a few shouts and gestures can be. They’ll see us and assume we’re a few stray cohorts raising the alarm.”

  “Possibly,” Maeve equivocated. “Or they might just take us to be vagrants and shoot us down. But—”

  “Then maybe we could do something to make the train more visible.” Paul was sorting through the possibilities.

  “You mean board the train and pull on the whistle or something?” Maeve handled that argument with the obvious sarcasm it deserved.

  “Alright,” said Paul, deep in thought. “What if we just made our way to the tracks and pulled some debris across the line. Not enough to cause any real harm, mind you, but perhaps enough to force them to stop and clear the rails.”

  “Not very practical, and risky again,” Maeve folded her arms.

  “But why?”

  “It’s a desert, Paul. It’s not like the rail line is lined with trees. To start with, I’ll bet we would have a rough time finding anything to block the rails. There was probably very little beyond scrub and an occasional tamarisk about.”

  “What about rocks,” Paul argued. “There should be plenty of rocks and gravel around. We could pile up just enough to force them to stop.”

  “And arouse their suspicions as well,” Maeve countered. “That’s the real complication, Paul. If we block the rail line they’ll be on the alert for possible sabotage. We would risk exposing the Arabs, and Lawrence himself, to a danger they did not have to face historically.”

  “Lord, every mission they undertook had the risk of discovery inherent in the operation.”

  “This is different,” Maeve countered. “The Turks would be on the alert. They’d be looking for trouble ahead on the line. They might get off a telegraph to call for help. The second train was a troop train, if I remember Nordhausen’s reading of that passage. Suppose they coordinate and catch Lawrence in a trap.”

  “You’re reaching, Maeve.” Paul needled her.

  “Yes, but you get my point. What if Lawrence is captured? We cannot expose a Prime Mover to unforeseen hazards—a risk forced upon him by our direct actions. There has to be another way.”

  Dorland leaned on the arm of his chair, his hand cupping his chin as he thought. “Alright,” he concluded. “Let’s stay with our assumption that the middle train is the key—the second train. To reverse that outcome we will have to find a way of sabotaging the wires or fiddling with the charge so it doesn’t go off. That’s up close and personal. We risk exposing ourselves there too.”

  “Yes, but it might be done by one of us. Lord, if they failed to see or hear the first train coming, then I’m inclined to think that one of us could sneak up and do the job.”

  “Possibly, but if we fail then the second train blows and the whole mission plays out as it does in the history we have now. We aren’t giving ourselves much room here.”

  “What about the third train?” Maeve jumped ahead to the obvious next step in the progression of their thinking. “Think, Paul. If we do manage to save the middle train, and if Lawrence persists in his plan, then it’s the third train that goes boom in the alternate time line. The way I see it we’ve still got a 50 percent chance here. If Masaui is on the middle train, and we save his life by preventing its destruction, then the fate of train three is irrelevant.”

  “But if he’s on the final one…” Paul latched a tender onto her train of thought for a moment. “Then Masaui needs to die. The way history reads now, that train might be delayed by the destruction of train two, but it is otherwise unharmed. We have to reverse that outcome as well to be certain.”

  “Right,” Maeve agreed. “Train two needs to be saved, and train three needs to blow up. It’s the only way to cover both bets. That’s why we can’t touch the first train. If we meddle with that, both of the other two trains will be spared.”

  Jen came running up the steps from the generator room, breathless with excitement. “Tom says the power can go to 100 percent any time. You can toggle it from the main panel up here. I’ll see that the feeds are all tapped in.” She went off behind the main console.

  “Great!” Paul clapped his hands together, rubbing them with anticipation. He looked at his watch, and Maeve pointed at it, almost aghast.

  “Take that off or you aren’t going anywhere.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing from our time can go through, Paul.” She looked over her shoulder at Jen, moderating her tone a bit. “At least nothing that would look obviously out of place. You know that!” She gave him a bemused look. “Suppose we leave a nice twenty-first century Timex glistening in the sand for some poor shepherd to find? Get rid of it.”

  “Right,” Paul fussed with the watch band as Nordhausen came huffing up in full costume.

  “Behold the Caliph!” He smiled broadly, extending his arms to display his long flowing robes. Maeve caught sight of his shoes and saw that he was still wearing a pair of Bass hiking boots.

  “Wonderful,” she said with an edge. “Those cleated, Vibram soles were all the rage in 1917. I found a pair of old boots for you, Robert. Go put them on.”

  “The damn things are too tight,” Nordhausen complained.

  “Too bad!” Maeve’s cheeks flushed red as she pointed to the ante-room. “Look, do I have to take you both in there and do a strip search on you before we go? Nothing from our time goes down to the Arch! Got that? Lose the shoes, and leave that book and your classic Parker ink pen behind as well, Robert.”
/>
  The professor gave Paul a wry wink as he shuffled away. “Come on, Paul. I’ll frisk you if you’ll return the compliment.” He laughed, lightening the mood. “We can spare Maeve the trouble.”

  “I’m clean.” Paul looked at Maeve. “You have my word on it, but if you ladies would care to explore the issue further…” He raised his eyebrows jokingly, looking from Maeve to Jen.

  “We’ll take your word on it,” Maeve grinned.

  Kelly slid away from the data portal and hurried over. “Numbers are in the system. I shaded a variable to try and give us a little more time, like Nordhausen wanted. No good trying to change the date at this point,” he explained, “but if we miss our mark it will push things in the right direction, behind the event and not in front of it.”

  “Glad to hear that much at least,” said Paul. He could put aside the worry of landing in 1957.

  “I better get dressed.” Kelly looked around. “Where’s my costume?”

  Paul looked at Maeve, and she read volumes in his eyes as he considered what to say next. “I’ve been thinking, Kelly,” he began uncomfortably.

  “Paul and I have been discussing things.” Maeve saw where he was going immediately and deftly came to his rescue, a co-conspirator on the effort to leave Kelly behind. She had other reasons, which she would keep to herself for a time, but now she decided to weigh in with Paul. “One of us has to stay here to watch the data flow, and you’re the numbers man.”

  “What? Hell, I’ve got everything programmed. It’s all automated. All we have to do is toggle the Arch to full power and go through.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Maeve forged ahead. “Nordhausen hit us with these three trains at the last minute. We’ve had to consider Outcomes and Consequences, and we’ll need someone here to make a possible adjustment on the retraction.”

  “Adjustment?” Kelly gave her a bemused look. “What are you talking about?”

  Nordhausen came tromping up, clomping his new army boots audibly and lifting his gown to display the battered old leather for Maeve. “They’re too tight,” he complained again.