Caesar's Bicycle (The Timeline Wars, 3)

by John Barnes

  It is essential that correspondence pass, if you were being formal and trying to pass Latin class. But The mail must go through was close enough.

  I distinctly sensed that Walks-in-His-Shadow Caldwell had been here, and I kind of liked his sense of humor.

  About an hour of unpleasant, cold wet walking brought us to the city of Fanum Fortunae. Porter hadn’t said much on the way; “surprisingly quiet” is the only kind of quiet that kid ever has been, at least once she got into an environment where she could play and could behave more or less normally, so I had been keeping an eye on her. Paula seemed to have crossed the timeline boundary with about as much aplomb as she crossed into Germany—maybe more, because the chips implanted in our heads allowed us all to speak Latin without an accent, and Paula spoke no German.

  Chrysamen was treating it like I did, or like anyone with practice would—it was gray, dingy, wet, and cold, and she wanted to get inside. This just wasn’t a big part of the job.

  After a while, as Paula took her turn at tail and Chrys at point, I found myself walking beside Porter. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in telling me what’s on your mind?” I asked.

  “Aw, Mark, you’ll pick on me for it.”

  “Vicious accusation, unless what’s on your mind is some worthless guy who wants to date you, or some lunatic notion you have like getting another hole punched in your nose.” We’d had a few go-rounds about nasal jewelry, which, in absolutely typical fashion for me, I’d lost. Probably because ultimately it was her nose; one way that I’ll never make parent material, I suppose, is that I tend to see too much value in such arguments.

  “No, it’s not a guy, and it’s not piercing,” she said. There was a long pause while we walked along, the fine grit of the road crunching under the heavy leather of our boots. Finally, after a very long while, she asked, “Are you going to say, ‘So, what is it, then?’ ”

  “I was trying to be quietly supportive.”

  “I think you’re easier to deal with when you’re repressing me. Okay, here’s what it is, Mark, and you can go right ahead and tell me how silly you think I am. Uh—is this a timeline where they could have us bugged?”

  “It’s not very likely that there would be any listening devices around here,” I said, “and even less likely that anyone is going to have a station to pick up something planted on our clothes. I don’t think you have to worry about any outfit that does time travel. And to judge from the looks of the bicycle that went by, I’d say you don’t have to worry at all about the locals.”

  “Okay, then.” She took a deep breath. “When you hear this, please don’t tell me to grow up, or anything like that.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Really. What’s the matter, Porter?”

  “Well, it’s that … a couple of people slipped, and I don’t think they were supposed to do it, but they addressed me as President Brunreich. And I know that I’m supposed to be very important in history and all that, so I just kind of put it all together. I’m going to be, uh, president of the United States, I guess?”

  “It sounds that way,” I said, noncommittally.

  “Well, what if I don’t want to be?” It came out kind of choked and strangled in sound, and when I looked closer I saw that she was crying. “I mean, I like music. I like playing the piano and organ, and I really want to get more composing done. All right, so maybe I’m famous, but nobody’s ever even asked my opinion about anything—though if they did, I could certainly tell them that things aren’t being run very well—but that doesn’t mean I want to run them myself. …” She was actually blubbering now, and wiping her face with the back of her hand, though a slight spitting rain was picking up so much that her face was hardly getting any dryer for the process.

  “Aww, Porter,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything better to say, and threw an arm around her.

  She hung on to me for a second, and seemed to be sobbing. “And another thing,” she added. “If that’s all the way it is … if the Closers always knew that the timelines where I was president were ones they wanted to prevent … then that’s why they tried to kill me, isn’t it? And they ended up killing my m-m-mother!”

  That made my mind flash back to when I had been working for ATN for less than three days—when Harry Skena and I had managed an impromptu rescue from a hostage situation. Ostensibly the Blade of the Most Merciful had been a Mideastern terrorist group noted for being erratic to the point of psychotic. Really, they had been a Closer front whose whole purpose was to eliminate the two biggest threats to them in our timeline: me and Porter.

  Porter had been alive when we arrived only because her mother had switched IDs with her; at the age of ten she’d seen her mother shot to death in front of her.

  For that matter, it had only been a few years before that I’d seen about half of my family die at the hands of the same outfit.

  There’s a bond Porter and I share that’s a little hard to explain to other people … and now, of course, poor old Harry Skena had been dead for years, and so were a lot of old friends and comrades, just to get us to this point.

  “Porter,” I said, “the way you are feeling is the most natural thing in the world. Really. You’re suddenly finding out that the whole world had big plans that turned around you, and you never got to have any say in them. You were just sort of dropped into the middle. It’s no wonder that you feel upset. And of course you’re wondering how much of your actions are really your own, and it doesn’t seem fair at all—plenty of people get through life without anything like this happening. Even geniuses and important people. You never asked for anything like this to happen, and there are better things you could be doing with your time. Am I right?”

  She snuffled. “Good guesses all around.” She smeared her face with her hand, still trying to get the tears and snot under control. She’d really been bearing up pretty well in a completely confusing situation; though I had never kept my work for ATN secret from her, or from my father or sister, it still must have been bewildering.

  “Well, it’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling lately.”

  She looked sideways at me. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. It is not normal for them to tell us what we do back in the past timelines. In fact usually they don’t know. Usually the job is, go back and fix things so that they come out right. How is up to you. This time the job is more like a mob hit; go shoot old Gaius in the back so that a civilization can come into being. Not even a suggestion that I ought to help decide whether Caesar needs shooting. And the worst part is not just being given the order—it’s knowing that I’m going to carry it out, whether I decide I want to or not. They’ve got it down in their history books that I shot Julius Caesar. No getting away from that one—I’m going to do it. Just like you’re going to end up as President Brunreich, and apparently to hell with whatever time you need to practice.”

  She sighed. “I just figured they must always know how it was going to come out.”

  “No—they only know in a general way that it did come out okay, sometimes. The details have always been up to us. But this is one hell of a detail to have them take control of. And I just think you probably feel exactly the same way about having to be president.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed and snuffled once again; I was getting to hate that hopeless little sound. “Mark, do you suppose I’ll be the first woman president?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, ’cause—well, I’m only eighteen right now. Do you realize how long that means we’ll have to wait for a woman president? And what a mess things are likely to be in by the time I get the job?”

  I laughed and gave her a quick hug; it was hard to believe this little wisp of a young woman was ever going to command anything more imposing than a piano keyboard, but then how could one know? Abe Lincoln must’ve looked like the class geek, or would have if he’d been able to get to school, and I always kind of suspected that they used to ta
ke Teddy Roosevelt’s glasses and make him bob for them in the boys’ room toilets.

  “You’ll be fine at the job,” I said, “if that’s any consolation. Hell, considering who ran the last few times, I’d be perfectly happy to vote for you next time.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s not the issue. Thanks for listening, though, Mark. I do feel better.”

  That left me alone with my own thoughts until we had a change of positions, and the thoughts were not the kind to be alone with. The overwhelming thing that kept coming back to me was that where at least Porter only knew that she would have a job and be important in the job, I knew something I was going to do. I was going to take a person of extraordinary energy and ability, one of the great complex figures of history, and turn him into a heap of meat.

  We had just changed over, so that I was on point (despite her protestations, we kept Porter in the middle for the whole journey), when the gate of Fanum Fortunae came into sight.

  It was a pretty typical Roman walled town—apparently the new military hardware had not yet strongly modified architecture, or maybe Fanum Fortunae just hadn’t been forced to adapt yet. The wall was high enough so that you would need a ladder to climb it, and wide enough for soldiers to be walking around on top of it. There were three big stone arches set in the wall, a large one over the road for carts and carriages, flanked by two small ones for pedestrian traffic.

  On this cold and generally rotten day, the city was sending up a substantial plume of brown smoke from its many chimneys—and that, I realized, was the most un-Roman thing about it, and another sign of Caldwell’s influence—the chimney was a late-medieval innovation in our timeline. Before that they had used various kinds of open hearths and smoke holes.

  But here was Roman Fanum Fortunae with belching chimneys. Moreover, as we drew nearer, I saw that the guards and watchmen on the city wall were wearing rubberized-fabric ponchos. Not elegant, but a sight more comfortable than what we had on.

  This guy Caldwell clearly valued comfort and had clearly exerted quite some influence. I was beginning to look forward to finding a place for the night.

  That turned out to be remarkably simple. As we entered the city, we saw the typical layout of a Roman town—stepping-stones over the major thoroughfares because streets doubled as sewers, and streets laid out in straight lines, with everything of military importance kept near the walls. We were coming in through the main gate, so the military parade ground was the first thing we walked past.

  But as we topped a slight rise at the end of the parade ground, I saw a beautiful sight: a billboard.

  The face on the billboard was rather startlingly piggish in aspect, with a kind of cunning expression that didn’t breed trust. All the same, he was smiling, and below, in Latin, was the announcement that we need only continue for eight hundred paces to reach the “Crassus Inn Fanum Fortunae”—“low rates and available throughout the Roman world.”

  I found myself wondering at once … a fast review of history was in order—

  “Hey,” Chrysamen said, “remember the data we memorized? Does this mean Crassus is still alive? In our timeline he was killed with his troops in Parthia, six years ago. If he’s still around, that really changes the balance of power.”

  “Sure does,” I said, “but I see more of the handiwork of Caldwell than I do Crassus here. The chain of hotels exists, anyway—and not a minute too soon because there weren’t any in the ancient world of our timeline. But just because Crassus’s name is on it doesn’t mean he’ll be at the front desk. Colonel Sanders is dead, but that doesn’t stop KFC.”

  “Well, then I guess we walk up there and find out,” Chrysamen said. “Which I do believe was the original plan.”

  The organization of the Crassus Inn was so much like a modern hotel that I suspect you could have checked in without knowing Latin—they must have had plenty of foreign travelers. In short order we were being shown into a large room, which they assured us was the cleanest and most modern in the place.

  I handed over the sesterces from the pouch on my belt, and they were gone at once. Only then did Porter say, “I see a problem here.”

  The problem was that the room was furnished with one bed—large and circular—and one tub—ditto.

  Modesty was going to be a bit tricky to serve, at least if I stuck around. “Well,” I said, “looks like Porter and Paula bathe first, while we go reconnoiter for what’s to eat. Then we take a turn. Then we all sleep dressed tonight.”

  Paula nodded. “Uh, boss, I didn’t stay awake in Latin class, but I just thought of something funny.” She had a slight crooked grin.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “I think the desk clerk, if that’s what the guy was, figured that all three of us are your harem. He’s going to be mighty surprised when two of us depart.”

  “Well, it’ll broaden his horizons. All right, we’ll see you in about an hour.”

  As we were walking out into the street, Chrys commented, “You know, there are people back in your home timeline who would be freaked by what you just did.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Well, um, you know that Paula—well, of course you know that she and Robbie are—”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And you left her alone with a teenage girl, to take a bath together.”

  “In case it hasn’t occurred to you,” I said, “I’m attracted to women myself, and I certainly wouldn’t attack Porter. And Paula’s devoted to her. You’ve been listening to too much talk radio, and it’s given you a dirty mind.” I was really annoyed.

  “Mark?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you. Don’t change.”

  I swear, it is not possible for a married guy to understand his wife even when they come from the same history. So I don’t know why I expected the present situation to make any more sense.

  Anyway, we found that though Fanum Fortunae was pretty much battened down against the bad weather, there were plenty of shops open, even if you did have to knock for admittance. One of the shopkeepers finally explained to us that on days like this, any ship out in the Adriatic was running for harbor early (when they could, Roman ships put in to port every night), and so you never knew how many seamen might turn up in the afternoon; the shops that were open would get all the business.

  A little exploration revealed that Caldwell had introduced a lot of other things. There were printed posters, for one thing, which meant he’d brought the press, movable type, and paper here (along with the secret of postering glue, as well, to judge from the dates on some of the posters, which had clearly been on those walls for years). There were a few very expensive horse cabs in the streets, with double-bowed axles and horse collars, the kind of thing that in our timeline wasn’t developed until centuries or millennia after Rome fell. There were mailboxes everywhere, so apparently among the other benefits of modernism, Caldwell had given them the post office. It made me wonder just how benign his intentions really were.

  The other thing we found was that employment seemed to be running pretty high. The background from my own time had suggested that this was an age of the urban mob, fueled by unemployment, when lots of people without jobs wandered around with nothing to do other than join riots and political campaigns. (Of course a riot and a political campaign were pretty much the same thing at the time.) This had no such aspect to it; everyone we saw was busy, and the harbor was a wild confusion of longshoremen and sailors getting things on and off the ships, merchants looking at the wares, captains announcing bargains. Fanum Fortunae looked like a city that had a lot to do.

  “Caldwell is one hell of a Special Agent,” I muttered to Chrys. “Can you believe the work he’s done?”

  “It’s remarkable,” Chrys agreed. “And if all the timelines really do open up for tourism, we’re coming back here. Have you noticed the silverwork on display?”

  We found a place that sold sausages in rolls, something not a lot different from the modern hot do
g, and stopped to eat there; by then we were fairly damp and cold and figured that it was about time to head back to the room, get a hot bath ourselves, and see how the other two were doing.

  Just as we started to stroll back to the Crassus Inn, there was a great uproar that seemed to come from everywhere at once. We looked around and saw that the guards were running back and forth on the walls like madmen; a moment later we heard the crashing sound of the big city gates being dropped, and we began to hurry toward the inn. “What do you suppose—”

  “Caesar might not be sticking to schedule,” I said. “That would be just like him, from everything we know about his history. And if he’s got enough bicycles for his legions, he moves a lot faster than we estimated.”

  We had to flatten ourselves against a building the next minute, and were splashed with the nasty mix of slush and sewage that ran between the stepping-stones, as fifty soldiers on bicycles shot by, moving fast and not looking much where they were going. “They’re in a hurry, and they looked scared,” I said. “This is bad, whatever it is.”

  I took Chrysamen’s hand and we ran through the streets together, trying to find a way to the inn that wasn’t hopelessly blocked with people. We had no luck—everywhere, people were rushing into the street to grab children or bring in a mule or horse. Shutters were slamming closed all around and everywhere there was the sound of hammering as shopkeepers and property owners boarded up their belongings.

  From a quiet city on a slow winter day, a few minutes ago, Fanum Fortunae had whipped into a panic; these people were on the brink of fleeing.

  All around us we could hear the word being shouted again and again—it sounded like “Kye Sarr,” in Latin, and it was the way they pronounced Caesar. Apparently his legendary ability to move an army fast—probably plus the technical boost of the bicycle—meant that he had gotten south much faster than we had thought he would.

  Caesar was not a nice guy; aside from the testimony of generations of Latin students, let me just mention his habit of accepting the surrender of cities and then abrogating the terms he had promised. Lying under a flag of truce is treacherous and needlessly imperils the lives of soldiers, but it does have the advantage of utterly crushing a helpless enemy. And his carefully constructed reputation for utterly crushing his enemies was helping him now—the city was ready to surrender.