Touchstone (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  Part IV

  Time & Place

  “It’s a bad plan that can’t be changed”

  —Puplilius Syrus: Maxims

  10

  The Golem alert subsided at exactly 2100 hours GMT, and the systems at Lawrence Berkeley Labs returned to a low standby mode. Paul got the system status call on his cell phone, and he telephoned the lab to leave a few instructions with the student interns supervising consoles there. As exhausted as they all were that night, the project team members each seemed to have something that pulled them along. Maeve took some time to settle into the meaning of all that had happened, her mind constantly diverted from the conversation with thoughts of Kelly. She decided to drive back to University Hospital and check on Kelly one more time before she turned in. They all agreed to meet at the lab at ten the following morning, where they would decide what to do about everything that had happened.

  “Read every word,” she said, pointing at the scattered pages of the Golem report. “If we have to make an intervention I want temporal and spatial targeting points in the morning—and a damn good reason for any action we take. Now we don’t have Kelly, so for heaven’s sake use a computer for the math. Clear?”

  Robert and Paul poured over the Golem report, for an hour, searching the data for variance flags and discussing anything that sounded serious. Amazingly, the Meridian was holding good integrity, and they had nothing above a .0013 variance report to bother with.

  “These numbers are cleaner than the probabilities we ran for the Shakespeare mission,” said Paul. “It doesn’t seem like your Rosetta Stone was all that important.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain,” the professor warned. “Sure, I’ve looked at dates from 1799 to the present and found little to get upset about. Did you read the bit on Champollion?”

  “I’m just getting to that.”

  “Don’t bother. He leads a humdrum life, publishes a few more compilations of his findings on Egyptian artifacts, and dies three weeks early.”

  Paul raised an eyebrow. “That’s odd.”

  “Yes. It seems that even if you make a great discovery it only ends up extending your expected life span by three weeks. So much for the bounty of fame.”

  “Then why all the fuss and bother over the hieroglyphics? How do we justify opening the continuum again with variance data this weak? You heard Maeve when she left. It’s going to be like pulling teeth at the lab with her tomorrow. She still thinks our tampering could bring Kelly down again, and that isn’t something we can dispel with good numbers.”

  “She’ll just have to get over it,” Robert insisted. Besides, she’ll want us to fix this because she just can’t bear to have things amiss. It was the only reason she agreed to allow the project to continue—to keep a watch on the history and defend the integrity of the Meridian we knew.”

  “True, but suppose you start by convincing me—just in case we meet resistance because of the Kelly thing. Here, I’ll play devil’s advocate.” Paul folded his arms. “Why do we need to investigate this Rosetta Stone thing? You’re off the hook, Robert. We’ve already determined that your trip did nothing to cause the damage. Why push this?”

  Nordhausen gave him a long look. He started to say something, then caught himself and reached for a pen and paper instead. Paul craned his neck to see what he was writing, but the professor waved him away until he was finished. He slid the paper across the table to Paul, a smug look on his face. “Remember that?” he challenged.

  The page was covered with a few neatly drawn lines of the ancient Egyptian writing. “Cute,” said Paul.

  “More than that, my friend. Those are the very same characters on that scroll I found in Rasil’s backpack.”

  “How could you remember something like that?”

  “How could I remember? What street do you live on, Paul?” The professor wore a miffed expression.

  “Alright,” Paul conceded. “So you remembered what you saw. I’ll grant you that. But what’s the big deal?”

  Nordhausen frowned. He leaned heavily on the table and pointed to each character in turn as he spoke. “Here follows the word of the Lord of Time… That’s this fellow here,” he said, pointing at a larger character he had drawn. “At the time of great struggle… Eternity lies in the shadow of the Wolf… The Wolf shall go forward and prey upon the bounty of the lord... Yet if he be slain for his misdeed…For his sin,” he corrected himself. “Then all will be overthrown. Therefore—That’s this line here, Paul, and now it reads: When the Old Man returns, the Lord’s Army shall come to the Gate of the West. The Temple Priest of Time proceeds with two eyes to the Lord of Eternity. That’s the literal translation, but I would paraphrase the bit about the eyes to mean ‘look’ or perhaps ‘meet.’ Let’s read it this way: The Priest of Time shall go forth and meet the Lord of Eternity.”

  “The two eyes,” Paul nodded, suddenly absorbed in the translation Nordhausen was making. “You really can read these things.”

  “I’ve been saying that all along. In fact, I may be the only person on earth in this milieu who can read them.”

  “So you’ll live three weeks longer,” Paul teased.

  “Well, are you telling me you aren’t curious about the references to time and eternity in those symbols?”

  “Of course I am, but what does it all mean?”

  “What does it mean? Think, man! You were the one sitting in Castle Massiaf. The Wolf was the nickname the Arabs gave to Reginald of Kerak. They called him Arnot—the Wolf, and his behavior made the handle quite appropriate. He raided the sultan’s caravan, capturing Saladin’s niece in the process. The sultan was so enraged that he invaded the Christian lands, which led to the great battle at the Horns of Hattin. Remember?”

  Paul’s eyes had a distant look in them as he recalled the breathtaking sight of the host of Teki Ad Din riding down from the north. The sound of the horses hooves still beat in his mind, and he could see the sinuous line of the rider’s torches as they made their way through the valley. “Right…” He was piecing the message together with the history in his mind now, following the professor at last. “Reginald was a Primary Lever on that event. If he hadn’t looted that caravan—”

  “Exactly!”

  Nordhausen hurried along. “Now remember this bit here… ‘Yet if he be slain for his sin, then all will be overthrown.’ That sure sounds like a warning to the operatives in that castle to keep their bloody hands off Reginald.”

  “Are you suggesting—”

  “Of course I am! They’re using the hieroglyphics as a code. Maeve suggested it herself in the debriefing sessions, and I’m convinced of it now. Then I go off to look for some primary source material and when I get back none of you have even heard about the hieroglyphics. But I was in the Nexus this time. I know. I can read them, damnit, so the rest of you will just have to believe me on this.”

  “Calm down, Robert. Nobody is questioning your take on this.”

  “That’s encouraging. Then you can see why they wanted the stone damaged, right?”

  Paul paused rolling his eyes, a look of recognition on his face. “It sure is a good way to preserve the secrecy of these message scrolls.”

  “Yes! Rasil was carrying that scroll as a message. Didn’t you say this Kadi figure questioned you about it? You said they called you a Gray Walker on the eternal Hajj. How’s that for a nifty metaphor for a Time Traveler?”

  “Yes! In fact they called me the Walker come from the Valley of the Moon.”

  “That’s what the Arabs call Wadi Rumm.” Robert fanned the flames of Paul’s thinking, trying to build heat for his argument. “They expected Rasil, and they were supposed to get this message. The Wolf shall go forward and prey upon the bounty of the lord... Yet if he be slain for his sin, then all will be overthrown. It was a warning for them—a set of instructions, if you will. These guys were Assassins. It was warning them not to exact revenge upon Reginald!” The whites of his eyes added emphasis to his conclusion. “Therefore,”
he pointed at his drawing again, “When the Old Man returns, the Lord’s Army shall come to the Gate of the West.”

  “The Old man was Sinan,” said Paul. “The Gate of the West was the Horns of Hattin.”

  “Precisely. Maeve and Kelly will both agree on that. They found it in the variance reports they ran during your inadvertent mission. So we have a warning, and consequence if that warning instruction is followed. It was an outcome favorable to the Arabs. The whole Christian army was slaughtered at Hattin and ninety years of Western occupation was ended in the holy lands. Rasil was carrying a message intended to make sure that happened.”

  “It certainly seems that way,” Paul agreed.

  “Why, there’s no question about it! Now then—” The professor clapped his hands, rubbing his palms together with anticipation. “The writer of that scroll would have to be from the future to be aware of the importance of Reginald in this matter.”

  “Yes,” said Paul. “The scroll identified a Primary Lever and warned against contamination. It clearly predicted the outcome if the instruction was followed. But what’s that last bit you translated?”

  Nordhausen looked at his drawing again. “Ah, yes. It reads: The Priest of Time shall go forth and see the Lord of Eternity. It could also read ‘to meet the Lord of Eternity. The Temple Priest was equated with the Old Man in this symbol.” He fingered his diagram. “The Lord of Eternity…Hummm, I wonder who that was?”

  Paul took a deep breath. “Me,” he said glumly.

  “Oh?” Nordhausen was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, eager to have his support for his interpretation.

  “Sinan was on his way to the castle—probably to intervene in the quarrel between the Sami and the Kadi. That was why Jabr ali Sad smuggled me out of the castle and hid me away in the library. But he was also going to eyeball me, I’m sure of it. Word certainly reached him of my unaccountable arrival. He was coming to take a look for himself.”

  “Sinan is from the future, Paul.” The professor’s voice was hushed with the implication of his statement. “He’s like a permanent CIA agent assigned to a given Milieu—and look what he does in the history: he sets himself up in these secret mountain strongholds to recruit and train Assassins to carry out operations aimed at influencing events.”

  “It sure looks that way. The Assassin cults survived for over 200 years, until the Mongols finally stomped them out for good.”

  “Who knows if they really succeeded?” Robert had the bit between his teeth now. “Good lord! I’ve almost forgotten it, but Rasil said something—more to himself than to me. He blew up the entrance to the Well of Souls, as he called it, and said something like: ‘It will never again deliver the souls of the faithful to our agents in Massiaf.’ Yes! Then he said: ‘I wonder how Sinan will fare without the scrolls to guide him now?”

  They looked at each other, and the conclusion was plain on both their faces.

  “Sinan is an agent,” Paul agreed. “From the future.”

  “And Rasil was sending instructions from Egypt. That threw me at first, but the more I thought about that scroll the more I was convinced that it was a rubbing.”

  “A rubbing?”

  “Yes, you hold the papyrus up to carved stone characters and the pressure of your rubbing imprints the images, like modern printing, only without the ink. It was a rubbing, Paul, and that meant the original message was carved somewhere, carved in stone. That’s why I wanted to look through the collection in the British Museum. I couldn’t find any reference to these characters in the existing data. If Rasil’s scroll was a rubbing then—”

  “The touchstone had to be somewhere…” Paul reached the obvious conclusion. “Good for you, Robert. You’ve convinced me. Rasil opened his big mouth and now someone has run a mission—at least according to this Golem report—to the year 1799; to Egypt, to Rosetta.”

  “They broke it,” Nordhausen nodded. “They’re trying to preserve the integrity of their code.”

  “Interesting,” said Paul, his tone hinting that he had some clear conclusion in mind. “Why would they be using stone carvings to keep a record of the history? Because that’s the real touchstone. It has to be. It’s not the Rosetta Stone, but this hidden record of the history.”

  “Are you suggesting they have some kind of archive or something?”

  “Well, Kelly came to the conclusion that we needed a reference point on the history that was stable if we were to have any success guarding the Meridian. Otherwise how would we know if something changed? That’s what this Golem report is all about. But it seems to me that our Arab adversaries, if indeed they are Islamic radicals like the Assassins, are using a low tech approach to this whole process. They’ve got these Oklo reaction chambers rigged up to provide enough power to open the continuum at selected points. They’ve established these one way gates, a natural Arch opening a breach to a selected time. They’ve got little reception committees set up for the Walkers, as they call them, and they’ve got agents and supervisors and God only knows what else! I only saw a few rooms of that castle.”

  Nordhausen gave him a grave nod of assent. “And while I was watching H.M.S Pinafore at the opera house someone from their side ran a mission—to wipe out the primary key to their record of the history. They’re using the Egyptian writing as a code, damn it. And if we go back tomorrow we can see about stopping them!”

  “To Rosetta?”

  “Where else? We have to see if the stone was broken upon discovery. If it’s whole, we have half a chance at fixing this thing. But what if it’s broken when they dig it up? That would mean the damage could have been done at any prior point in the history. We’d never find that needle in the haystack.”

  “That would be hard to pull off,” said Paul. “No one knows when the stone was placed there. If they weren’t careful they might do something that would affect the discovery in 1799.”

  “Ah,” Nordhausen countered. “But they know where it is—where it was discovered. They could go back a year earlier, dig it up, damage it, and then bury it again. And they know exactly what that stone said—in fact, I know what it said. I still remember it.”

  “Tell me.” Paul was suddenly curious.

  “Well nothing really mysterious or important. It was really just a sign, a proclamation by Ptolemy V Epiphanes laying out all his good deeds in regards to the temples and priests to buy their reciprocal good will and cement his legacy. The last line even states a possible point of origin for the stone. It read: ‘This decree shall be inscribed on a stela of hard stone in sacred, native and Greek characters and set up in each of the first, second and third rank temples beside the image of the ever-living king.” He gave Paul a satisfied look, pleased with his recollection of the history and taken with the notion that he was the only one alive now that knew this.

  “So they had clues enough to look for it deeper in the past as well,” he concluded.

  “Possibly, but that’s a much more difficult operation,” said Paul. “You just said that they were going to carve this message in each of three temple sites. They would have to get just the right one—the exact stone that eventually wound up in Rosetta, wouldn’t they? Otherwise they’d have to damage all three to be sure none of them was ever found intact. There’s just too much variation and haze in that direction. I like the idea of damaging it after it was dug up in 1799, or perhaps just a year before as you suggested—something very close to the discovery date. That has much more clarity—much more likelihood of success.”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out,” said the professor with a gleam in his eye. “Now all we have to do is convince Kelly and Maeve.”

  11

  The next morning the four team members met at the Lab as planned. This time Paul was the last to arrive, still yawning when he came through the door and found the others milling about the main control consoles, already deep in a discussion over temporal coordinates. Nordhausen was standing with an armful of books, volumes dragged from his well stock
ed library. He was pushing one on Maeve, trying to gesture with a free hand while she flipped through the pages. Kelly was seated at the console, and Paul gave him a hearty ‘welcome back.’

  “We didn’t think we’d have you here,” he said. “This is great! Now I don’t have to run the numbers.“

  “There you are, Paul.” Nordhausen was on him at once. “I realize these volumes have been altered slightly by that last time mission, but they’ll give us a good starting point on the history, and we can look up details in Kelly’s RAM bank to verify things.”

  Paul glanced at Maeve, obviously checking her reaction to all this.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “He’s been arguing his point for an hour now and—”

  “—She’s agreed to approve the mission,” the professor put in excitedly.

  “She’s agreed that 1799 is the key target date,” Maeve corrected him quickly.

  “Right—well we aren’t throwing darts, Maeve.” The professor pressed on. “It’s the date we need for the mission. Kelly’s already working up the preliminary numbers.”

  “Right,” said Kelly, bent over his laptop. “But I’ll need time on an Arion to solidify all this.”

  Paul gave Kelly a curious look. “You sure you’re OK, buddy?”

  “Me? I’m fine. A complete recovery. Whatever you guys did it was pure genius. I think you’ve protected my integrity in this Meridian for good, but I’ll tell you, the thought that someone was digging up my grave…”

  “I had the same feeling,” said Paul. “In fact…This may be my imagination, but I think I was being followed on my way over to the lab this morning.”

  “Followed?” Maeve did not like the sound of that.

  “Well, I may just be paranoid but I stopped for a Bagel and coffee at Peet’s, and there was this guy in a car parked across the street. He was just sitting there, smoking a cigarette, but when I came out he started his engine and I swear he was behind me all the way until I hit Cyclotron Road and the outer security shack.”