by Pete Hautman
The Timesweep remained perfectly motionless, its disko fully dilated. After several minutes had passed, the disko flickered green. With a sound like a rupturing water balloon, it vomited Henry Hall back into the alley.
Henry landed on his butt, his mouth wide open and his eyes bulging. The Timesweep contracted its portal and rolled, oozed, or tumbled off.
Carefully, Henry stood up. The last thing he remembered was sitting on a barstool enjoying a brandy manhattan. Now he was standing in the alley behind the Drop, wearing an unfamiliar one-piece garment that seemed to be made of gray polyester, and a pair of bright-blue plastic socks.
Henry had blacked out before, but he’d never woken up in somebody else’s clothes. Even more curious, he had no hangover — no pounding headache, no sour taste in his throat, no roiling gut. In fact, he felt fantastic.
Weird. They would never believe him at the Drop. Of course, they never believed anything he said anyway, but at least they listened. He checked his garment, looking for pockets. There were none. No pockets meant no money. Oh, well, maybe he could parlay his story into a few free drinks.
Henry started for the back door to the bar, but before he reached it, he stopped, puzzled by something within himself. Something important was missing, as if he had forgotten to breathe. What was it? Henry’s mind, working better than it had in many years, flipped through its catalog of wants, desires, and needs. Very shortly he had his answer: for the first time in more than twenty years, he had no desire whatsoever for a brandy manhattan — or any other alcoholic beverage.
Henry Hall pondered that for a few moments, shrugged, and began the long walk home.
TUCKER LANDED ON HIS FEET AND ROLLED, TUMBLING down a steep bank studded with broken stones and tufts of dry grasses. He came to rest against a prickly bush.
He blinked away the afterimages from the flash of the priest’s weapon and looked up at the cloudless sky. The sun, already hot on his forehead, hung directly above.
He sat up, then stood. Except for a scrape on his elbow, he was uninjured. Looking around, he saw that he had rolled down the side of a dry ravine choked with thorny, small-leaved bushes. He could see the disko floating about ten feet above the lip of the ravine, winking in and out of sight as he moved his head from side to side. Would the priests come after him, or would they be afraid to enter the disko? He had no way of knowing. He watched the disko, ready to run if any yellow robes appeared.
After a few minutes, he decided that they weren’t coming after him. Or maybe they had tried and ended up someplace else — Awn had told him that the diskos might take different people to different times and places. But what was this place?
She had also told him that the Klaatu used the diskos to witness “the terrible, the horrific, the irreversible.” Did that mean something awful had happened here?
Using clumps of grass and stunted trees for handholds, Tucker climbed the steep side of the ravine. He slowed as he reached the lip, then peered cautiously over the edge and looked out over a rocky, dome-shaped hill. The hilltop was barren except for several irregularly spaced posts that looked like stubby, hand-hewn telephone poles with deep notches cut into their tops. The posts were about six feet tall, with one exception: at the center of the hill stood a taller post, almost twice as tall as the others.
The post closest to him was a few feet below and a few feet behind the disko. He could shinny up it, balance on the top, and dive into the disko if necessary. Of course, that might land him back in Awn’s forest with the priests. Still, it was good to have an escape hatch.
Tucker climbed up over the lip of the ravine. Past the hilltop, a few hundred yards away, stood the stone walls of a city. He knew immediately that he was not in the twenty-first century — or anywhere near it. He could see no cars, no electrical wires, no highways. A faint haze hung low over the city walls — probably the source of the smoky smell hanging in the air. Between the hill and the city, several groups of people moved along a network of narrow dirt trails that fed into a wider road paved with stones. The road led to an open gate in the wall.
Some of the people carried baskets; others led donkeys doing the same. Most of them wore long dresses, or robes, in various colors. A man in a pale-blue sleeveless robe used a stick to guide a heavily laden camel along the base of the wall. A camel! Near the entrance to the city stood a group of men wearing helmets and red jerkins with armored breastplates. They carried swords on their belts. Tucker knew at once that they were soldiers.
This was not Minnesota, or even America. The people here probably didn’t even speak English. He had no place to go, no food, no water . . . nothing. Had his father preceded him here? If so, he was not here now. Tucker wanted to curl into a ball and make it all go away. He closed his eyes and imagined himself back in Hopewell. Images flickered through his head: his mom at the organ, the swing at Hardy Lake, Lahlia, Kosh . . . Tucker drew a shaky breath. It all seemed so long ago.
I’m older now, he told himself. Stronger. This wasn’t as bad as being on the World Trade Center or on that pyramid with the priests.
He opened his eyes. The hilltop was as before, but it felt somehow smaller. If his dad was here, Tucker would find him. If not, he would climb up that post, return to Awn’s forest and try another portal.
The far side of the hill fell sharply into an orderly grove of trees with twisted trunks and silvery-green leaves — olive trees? Beyond the orchard lay a crazy quilt of bright green crops, and then sparse grassland giving way to brown desert. Tucker walked slowly around the crest of the hill — it was like standing on the dome of a giant, petrified skull that had pushed up through the earth’s crust. Three brush-choked ravines radiated out from the crest. The one he had fallen into was the deepest and steepest of the three.
He looked at the walled city. If his father had arrived at this place, he would have had to seek food and shelter. He would have gone to the city. A narrow, shallow valley a few hundred yards across separated the city from the hill. Tucker did not like the look of the soldiers at the gate. A boy wearing gray coveralls and bright-blue plastic booties would definitely be noticed. He sat down with his back to one of the posts and considered his situation.
What would his father do? What had his father done?
The camel, the walled city, the way people were dressed all added up to his being somewhere in Africa or the Middle East. He wished he’d paid closer attention in his geography and history classes because, he thought with a sour smile, you never know when you might be magically transported halfway around the world and hundreds of years into the past. But the bigger question than Where? or When? was Why? Awn had said that the Klaatu Diskos led to interesting times. What made this place so interesting?
What had Awn said? The death of a prophet.
At the sound of leather scuffing stone, Tucker ran back to the ravine and hid behind a bush. Seconds later, a single soldier climbed onto the hilltop from the opposite side. He was dressed exactly like the man Tucker had seen running through Awn’s forest.
The soldier lifted off his helmet, set it on the ground, wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm, and ran his fingers through his short-cropped hair. He walked to the tall post, grabbed it with both hands, and shook it back and forth. The post wobbled. The soldier muttered something and trudged over into one of the other ravines. A few minutes later, he returned carrying an armful of flat rocks. He dumped the rocks next to the tall post, then fit one of the smaller rocks into a gap at the base of the post and used a larger stone to pound it into place. When he had finished, he stood and tried to shake the post again. This time, the post did not wiggle. Satisfied, the soldier repeated his task with two of the shorter posts. He retrieved his helmet, tucked it under his arm, and left the hilltop.
Tucker waited. Something would happen — it always did. Awn had told him that the diskos were inconstant but never random. There had to be a reason the portal had brought him to this place.
Two more soldiers, each of them carrying
a long, forked pole, climbed onto the hilltop. They stopped near the tallest post and stood talking in low voices. Seconds later, they were followed by a squat, smiling man wearing a soiled brown tunic. Around the man’s tunic was a wide belt decorated with silver. In one hand he carried a mallet, in the other a leather sack. He joined the two soldiers, tossing the mallet and the sack on the ground near the base of the post. The sack made a clanking sound. The three men looked across the valley toward the walled city. The squat man made a joke; the soldiers laughed. Tucker raised himself higher to see what they were looking at.
Crossing the valley, headed in their direction, were three naked men carrying wooden beams across their shoulders. A group of about ten soldiers followed them closely. The soldiers could have been Greek, Egyptian, or any of a dozen other nationalities, but with a growing dread of what he was about to witness, Tucker felt certain they were Romans.
A crowd of perhaps thirty people wearing a variety of robes and tunics in various colors followed the Roman soldiers. Several children, dressed in tattered and stained fabric, ran in and out of the crowd, shouting and laughing. At the rear of the procession, several bearded men in long white robes walked two abreast.
One of the naked men at the front of the procession pitched forward. He fell flat, the weight of the beam driving his face into the dirt. Two of the soldiers grabbed the ends of the beam and lifted him to his feet. The man’s arms were roped to the beam. He staggered forward, blood streaming from his nose.
Horrified, Tucker ducked back into the ravine. He did not think he could watch what was about to happen, even though he’d seen it depicted in illustrations, in movies, and — most vividly — in his imagination. He huddled there trying not to listen as the voices — and the cries of pain — grew louder. He pressed his hands to his ears and, for the first time since he had left Hopewell, Tucker Feye prayed — for Jesus.
THE WORST PART — EVEN WORSE THAN THE SCREAMS and gasps and groans — was the sound of the mallet striking iron, again and again. The reality of what was happening on top of that hill could not possibly have been worse than what Tucker was seeing in his head: nails tearing through muscle, tendon, and bone. He forced himself to climb back up the side of the ravine. He peeked over the edge in time to see four of the soldiers using the forked poles, one on each end of the beam, to raise one of the men — the one who had fallen on his face — onto the tallest post. When the beam reached the top, it dropped with a thud into the notch, forming a T-shaped cross.
The man hanging from the cross appeared to be unconscious. The other two men had already been hung from two of the shorter posts.
The crowd watching the crucifixions were gathered at the far side of the hilltop. Tucker remembered the name of this hill: Golgotha, the place of the skull. The man hanging from the tallest cross would be Jesus.
The death of a prophet.
The Roman soldiers formed a barrier, keeping the observers well back from the crosses. The white-robed men stood off to the side, separate from the rest. The cheerful man with the silver-studded belt brought his mallet over to the tall post and looked up at Jesus. The head of the mallet was stained with blood. The man, Tucker decided, must be the official crucifier, or executioner. He said something to one of the soldiers, who spat on the ground and turned away. Another soldier — the only one wearing a crest on his helmet — shouted an order. The soldier who had spat returned reluctantly to the base of the crucifix, removed his helmet, squatted down, and allowed the executioner to clamber onto his shoulders so that he could reach Jesus’s feet. The executioner pulled a long, broad-headed nail from a pocket in his tunic. He used his palm to drive the point of the nail deep into Jesus’s right ankle, then bent the leg and hammered the nail through the ankle into the side of the post. Blood spattered from the fresh wound, ran down his arm and dribbled onto the cursing soldier’s head.
By this point, the scene had become so unreal that Tucker felt as if he were watching a particularly graphic and gruesome movie, but he could not look away. The executioner repeated his act with the other ankle. This time, as the executioner delivered the final blow with the mallet, the man on the cross shuddered and awakened with an agonized moan. The soldier, startled, staggered back and lost his balance. Both men fell backward, the executioner landing flat on his back.
The other soldiers laughed. The executioner and the soldier jumped to their feet, shouting at each other. Above them, on the cross, the dying man looked around with a wild-eyed expression of amazement and despair, as if he could not believe that he had come to this.
Tucker, cowering in the ravine, closed his eyes and began, silently, to weep.
The soldiers departed Golgotha — all but two, who squatted in the scant shadow cast by the dying prophet and played some sort of game involving polished stones and coins. The crowd of gawkers became bored and returned to the city. The men in the white robes were among the last to leave, but for a few of the unruly children, who stayed behind, laughing and calling out to the crucified men. Mired in their own miseries, the dying men ignored them. One of the children threw a handful of pebbles at Jesus. The pebbles bounced off the cross and rattled down upon the soldiers, who jumped up from their game and chased the children off.
Tucker waited in the ravine. Every few minutes, the man on the tallest cross would stir, moaning and muttering and trying to lift himself with his feet to take the pressure off his arms and chest, and then he would pass out again. The other two crucified men followed a similar pattern. Tucker had always thought of the crucifixion as equal parts holy and horrifying, but he could see nothing holy about any of this. The dying men were in agony. Jesus did not look at all like a man who believed he would be resurrected. He looked scared. And where was Mary, his mother? Where was Mary Magdalene? Where were the apostles and the rest of his followers?
One of the soldiers produced a wineskin. The two men passed it back and forth, drinking. Their conversation became loud and boisterous; one attempted to engage Jesus in conversation, but he was not satisfied by the dying man’s anguished replies. The wineskin gave up its last drops; the soldiers grew sleepy. They arranged themselves with their heads in the shadow of the cross and soon were snoring.
This might be a good time for me to leave, Tucker thought. He could follow the ravine down to the base of the hill. From there, he could cut through the olive orchard and . . . after that, he wasn’t sure. He would have to find food and shelter for the night — either that or go back through the disko to confront the priests.
A movement about fifty yards to his right caught his eye. A figure emerged from another ravine and crept across the stony expanse toward the tallest cross. It was his father, in jeans and a flannel shirt, wearing the bright-blue boots of the Medicants, exactly as he had been dressed the day he returned to Hopewell with Lahlia.
Tucker almost shouted but caught himself before the sound left his throat. He did not want to awaken the two snoring soldiers. Instead, he stood and waved, but his father was focused on the man on the cross, and had his back to Tucker.
The Reverend Feye approached the cross. He looked up at Jesus and said something. Jesus groaned and stirred. The Reverend moved closer and spoke again, then reached up and touched the man’s foot.
Jesus screamed, contorted his body, and passed out again.
The two soldiers sat up at the sound and looked around, confused. The Reverend Feye took off running, his long strides quickly taking him over the back side of the hill and into the olive orchard. Both soldiers started after him, but one of them stopped after a few strides, ran back to the tall cross, and thrust his sword deep into Jesus’s side. Satisfied by the sudden and copious flow of blood, he joined his fellow soldier in pursuit of the Reverend Feye.
Tucker’s first impulse was to go running after them, but he held back. Assuming his dad was able to elude the soldiers, where would he go? He would be interested in only one thing — the man who now hung slack and lifeless from that cross. Tucker thought there was a g
ood chance he would return to the hilltop.
The soldiers had been gone for only a minute or two when another group appeared over the brow of the hill — the white-robed men who had earlier witnessed the crucifixion. Moving quickly and purposefully, they surrounded Jesus. One of them produced an iron tool from the sleeve of his robe and worked the nails loose from Jesus’s ankles. Using the forked poles left behind by the soldiers, the others lowered him from the post — still attached to the crossbar. The man with the tool pulled the nails from his wrists. They wrapped him in a long white cloth and carried him off the hill in the opposite direction taken by Tucker’s father and the two soldiers. Could his father have lured the soldiers away so that these men could steal Jesus’s body?
The men carried the body off Golgotha using the path that led toward the city. Tucker followed them, staying out of sight. After a hundred yards or so, they turned away from the city onto a narrow road paved with irregular stones, where they were met by several other similarly garbed men. They followed the road along the valley, moving quickly, taking turns carrying their burden, looking back frequently. Tucker stayed off to the side, using rocks and the occasional shrub for concealment. His Medicant boots did an amazing job of protecting his feet from the plentiful sharp stones and thorns.
They walked for perhaps a mile, until they reached the base of a low cliff, a nearly vertical rock face about thirty feet high and several hundred yards long. Along its shadowed face were several rectangular openings. Some of the openings were blocked or partially blocked by stone slabs. Tucker watched from the opposite side of the road, hidden behind a cluster of bushes. The men set the body on the ground before one of the stone slabs. Using three round logs as crude wheels, they rolled the stone slab aside to reveal a low, narrow opening.
Two of the men carried the body inside. The others waited outside, pressing themselves close to the wall to take advantage of the scant midday shade.