Weighing Shadows

by Lisa Goldstein

  “Why do they have to die for that, though?” Ann asked. “Why is she so bloody, that waning moon lady?”

  Elias and Da Silva and Walker all turned to stare at her, scowling in a clear warning not to talk. But she wasn’t giving anything away, she just wanted to know.

  The queen smiled. “As well ask why fire is hot, or why we take pleasure from eating and making love. People die, you know—you can’t stop it. She is the mistress of birth and sex, but also of death.” She paused. “Was that it? Do you think it’s unfair that the Minos has to die?”

  “No,” Ann said. “I just wondered.”

  “Then what? Help me understand here. Was it money? A chance to trade with us, on better terms than I would have ever given you? Or did the Minos simply bribe you?”

  Ann shook her head, wishing she hadn’t said anything. The queen was still looking at her with that warm and understanding smile. She had thought Da Silva was motherly, but this woman seemed something beyond that, the pattern for all mothers everywhere. She remembered that Ariadne had said that this room was her daughter’s, reminding them of a mother-daughter relationship from the very beginning. Be careful, she thought. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

  She drank the rest of her juice to avoid looking at her. None of the others touched anything; they thought it was poisoned, probably. She was willing to take that chance, though. One of the first rules of foster care was to eat while you can; you never knew when you might get another meal.

  “Or did you truly think the Achaeans would make better rulers?” The queen looked at each of them in turn. “You’re women here, most of you—you know how bad men are at making decisions, how they’re ruled by their emotions. There’s too much anger there, too much love of violence. I acted like a man when I got angry with you, and I’m sorry for it.”

  She finished her drink and stood up, and her women stood around her. “All right then. I’ll be busy tomorrow, but some of these women will come and take a meal with you.”

  Ann had thought the women were ceremonial, ladies-in-waiting or something. Now she saw that they were part of a council, helping the queen make her decisions. They left the room, the queen first, and the bar slid into place behind them.

  The servants had not taken the food, and the others seemed to realize that they wouldn’t be poisoned while the queen still wanted information. “What are we going to do?” Franny asked, taking a slice of bread. “They’ll keep asking us questions until we answer them. And after a while they’ll stop being so polite.”

  “People die, you know—you can’t stop it,” the queen had said. And they knew more about death than Ann ever had, these people who had once seemed so untroubled and carefree. Was Ariadne saying that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill if they needed to?

  “What if we told them the truth?” she asked. “Would that really be so terrible?”

  “Well, the problem with that is that they wouldn’t believe you,” Da Silva said. “I mean, think about it. What are you going to tell them? That you’re from far in the future, come back to make things better …”

  “I could tell them to look in our bags, at our technology. That would prove it.”

  “You’d change the past drastically if you do that,” Elias said. “Imagine Kaphtor with an industrial revolution.”

  “They won’t be able to figure out anything from our stuff. It’s much too advanced.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “We can tell them we’re gods,” Franny said. “Show them the flashlights, the stun guns.”

  “They have their own gods,” Da Silva said. “And we don’t look anything like them.”

  No one said anything after that, each of them thinking their own thoughts, preparing themselves in their own way.

  The time passed achingly slowly. There were no windows, no sight of the sun moving through the sky. Every so often someone would ask what time they thought it was, but no one ever answered, though once Walker snapped at the questioner and asked what difference it could possibly make.

  Finally, around mid-afternoon, they heard the bar being lifted on the other side of the door. Franny grabbed Ann’s hand. Ann didn’t move away, though she couldn’t remember the last time she had held onto someone for reassurance.

  The door opened, and Meret came inside.

  Everyone exclaimed at once. “Meret!” “What the hell—” “What are you doing here?”

  “So you’re working with the queen now?” Da Silva asked.

  “I’m rescuing you, you idiots,” Meret said. She was wearing a long Kaphtoran robe over her shift. “Get up, let’s go.”

  They hurried outside, then rushed after her down the hallway.

  “Just what are you doing?” Walker asked as they ran. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, right now,” Meret said.

  “Ann already told us you’re part of Core. So why are you helping us?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to see you die here.”

  “How did you know where we were?” Ann asked.

  “Stop asking questions—we have to hurry.”

  They ran through the maze of the palace, passing rooms and lightwells and staircases. They started through a long room lined with frescos of graceful dancing figures, and then Meret cursed and turned back. A ballroom?

  Finally, after Ann was thoroughly lost, Meret stopped at a door and peered outside. “Come on,” she said.

  They went through and found themselves in the bull court. It was empty, but Ann remembered the crowds, the noise, and she felt anxious, as if the queen was about to enter and the games start up again at any moment.

  “Hurry up!” Meret called to her.

  They ran through the court and out onto the road. “All right,” Ann said, slowing down. She was panting, unable to catch her breath. “How did you know where we were?”

  “I made myself useful around the palace.”

  “So you were working for the queen!” Walker said. “Were you the one who told her we were at the lookouts?”

  “Don’t be stupid. If I was the one who betrayed you, why would I come and rescue you later? And keep running—we’re not safe yet.”

  There was an answer to that question, Ann thought, but she was too exhausted to concentrate. They passed houses and taverns and shrines; then the path started heading down the hill, away from Knossos. “Where are you taking us?” she asked.

  “To the key you buried, of course. You’re going back.”

  “You aren’t coming with us?”

  “What do you think? They know I’m with Core—they’ll question me every bit as hard as the queen would have questioned you.”

  “Oh, come on,” Da Silva said. “You have a very strange idea of the company if you think that.”

  Meret said nothing. She ran out ahead of them and then jogged back. “There’s someone coming, but she won’t stop you. Stop running, pretend you have every right to be here.”

  They slowed to a walk. Ann took deep breaths, trying to calm the pounding of her heart. A shepherd passed them on the road, driving her sheep in front of her. “We could make you come back with us,” Elias said.

  Meret laughed. “Not really.” She reached into her robe and drew out a small gun. “I took all your weapons.”

  The sight of the gun was enough to silence them. They continued down the hill, passing more people heading into the city. Finally they reached the small stream and the valley floor she remembered, and came in among the fields and vineyards.

  “Where did you get the gun?” Da Silva asked. “Did you take our bags from the inn?”

  “Yeah. I can use some of the things you brought with you.”

  “So you’re really staying hern?”

  “Of course. Where else would I go?”

  “You could come home with us. We won’t penalize you, I promise—we just want to know why you’re doing this, what you hope to gain by it.”

  “I want to see the Kaphtorans survive for awhile longer, th
at’s all. I’m sure the company will send in more agents in a generation or so, but I’m going to see that they’re safe for now.”

  “Of course we will—we get what we want eventually. But it’ll be harder the next time—the Kaphtorans will have had time to build up their navy again, and strengthen the lookouts along the coast. And who knows what else you’ve done hern, blundering around like this? You’ve interfered with years of careful calculations, snarled up the timelines. For all we know you’ve made things worse.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I could show you what you did, on the computers.”

  “I told you, I’m not going back.”

  The trees ahead were starting to look familiar, and a short while later Ann saw the place they had landed. It was an olive grove, she realized, noticing for the first time the twisted brown trunks, the dusty green leaves. She’d been too anxious to look at it closely, the first time she’d been here.

  “Where did you bury the key?” Meret asked.

  Walker made her way through the trees. “Here,” she said.

  She stooped and dug up a round piece of metal about an inch across. It looked a little like a gyroscope, Ann thought— there were oddly-shaped pieces cut out of the outer layer, revealing another layer with more holes beneath it, and yet another layer underneath that.

  “Okay, good,” Meret said. “All of you, go stand over there with her.”

  Walker manipulated the key, twisting it like a Rubik’s cube. “Hurry up,” Meret said, waving the gun at them.

  It was at that moment, as she went to join Walker, that Ann understood Meret’s riddle. “You betrayed us because you were trying to keep the Kaphtorans safe, like you said,” she said. “And then you rescued us because you didn’t want to see us die.”

  “But how could I have possibly known that you’d be at the lookouts?” Meret asked. She was smiling again, almost laughing, as if Ann had told her a good joke. “You know none of you told me that.”

  The air wavered around her. Everything began to blur together, the brown of the trees, the green of the leaves. The sun skipped in the sky like a stone over water.

  Meret’s voice came from far away. “Don’t worry—you’ll figure it out,” she said. Or did she? A dreadful ringing sounded in Ann’s ears, drowning out everything else. Her stomach clenched and she nearly vomited.

  Then lights blazed out in front of her, so bright she felt as if she was being stabbed to the brain. She fell down onto a flat surface, the platform that had launched them back in time. Somewhere there were people applauding, whistling, someone calling “Welcome back!” in English.

  The nausea was gone, and she looked around. The launch room seemed exactly as they’d left it, as though no time at all had passed. She pressed her hands to the platform and stood up. How long had it been since she had felt anything truly smooth, anything not handmade?

  A man walked up to them, smiling broadly, holding out his hand. He was pale, very pale; she wasn’t used to men who weren’t some shade of red or brown. “Good to see you,” he said, shaking hands with Elias and then Da Silva. “But we didn’t feel any timequakes here—what happened to your assignment? And where’s Haas? And Gregory Nichols?”

  “We couldn’t do it,” Elias said. “I’m sorry.”

  The man frowned, then smiled again. “Well, don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will turn out all right, I’m sure. Right now you’re going to the infirmary, and then we’ll start our debriefings. Anyone need medical attention? What about some food or drink before we start?”

  “Water,” Franny said.

  Pomegranate juice, Ann wanted to say. “I’d like some water too,” she said.

  08092014

  109575

  Assignment 17 to Kaphtor, Supplement: Some Notes about Core, Along with Recommendations Emra Walker

  In addition to the problems we encountered during our assignment (see “Assignment 17 to Kaphtor,” attached, for my full report), there were several disturbing incidents that might shed some light on the problematic group known as Core. To begin with, Francine Craig and Ann Decker were supposed to meet me at a prearranged location after drugging their jailers, but I later learned that they did not do this. Instead, Decker brought Craig to the cemetery at Craig’s request, to show her where Gregory Nichols was buried. While at the cemetery they met Meret Haas, who was in the process of digging up Nichols’s grave.

  Craig and Decker’s account of what happened there made it clear that Haas had joined Core. Decker also mentioned that Haas had wanted to inspect Nichols’s body because of her suspicions that the company had somehow killed him. When Decker asked her why the company would do such a thing, Haas admitted that Nichols might have been another member of Core. Craig and Decker denied that Haas had used the word “Core,” though, or given any description of that group’s workings.

  We tried to bring Haas back with us, but, as I stated in my report, we were unsuccessful. It is possible that she was not working alone, that she had help from other members of Core. Certainly her actions seemed too coordinated to be the work of one person.

  My recommendations are as follows:

  First, we must review all of Haas’s previous assignments for possible sabotage. (See Table 13, attached, for a list of those assignments.)

  may have to send more agents to the past to erase these efforts.

  Third, we must continue to monitor this tace, to see if Haas manages to effect any important changes thern.

  Fourth, we need to review the files of all of the agents who took part in Assignment 17. Craig and Decker’s exposure to Haas is troubling, especially in connection with the indications of antisocial behavior I saw earlier. (See the report, “Strengths and Weaknesses of Cohort 14, Along with Some Recommendations,” attached.)

  Decker is scheduled to go on Assignment 21, to Alexandria. (See Table 14, attached, for a full list of agents on that assignment.) As you can see, Haas was sent on another assignment thern earlier, and will be in Alexandria at the same time. My fifth recommendation would be to give Decker an additional assignment, that of getting close to Haas and finding out more about her plans, and those of Core.

  ANN AND THE OTHERS were checked out by medical personnel, pronounced healthy, and given separate living quarters within the company. They stayed there for several days, recuperating and being taken to various rooms for interviews.

  Ann told her own story three times, to three different people. Each of them stopped her when she came to her meeting with Meret at the cemetery, and each asked her the same questions. What did Meret tell you about Core? Did she invite you to join?

  She had trouble breathing; the air seemed filthy after the clean skies of Kaphtor. And she slept badly, and her dreams were filled with snakes and drums and axes, each shape shifting into another like the waxing and waning moon.

  Finally one morning she was shown into a fourth room, where to her surprise she saw Da Silva waiting for her. Da Silva went to sit in a fat upholstered chair, and indicated to Ann to take the chair opposite.

  “Well,” Da Silva said. “You’re probably exhausted by all those questions.”

  “I guess,” Ann said.

  “I know I am. I hate it, but it has to be done. The company has to know everything that happens, on every assignment. And especially this one, because, well, because we failed.” She scrunched up her face in mock distress, and Ann smiled.

  “Does that mean they won’t send us on any more assignments?” she asked.

  “Not at all. None of the things that went wrong were your fault, not by any stretch of the imagination. The first problem was Gregory’s death, and things just got worse from there.”

  Ann hadn’t told the interviewers one of the things that bothered her, which was that Walker had been so incompetent. From the very beginning, when she was thrown by Itaja’s statement that they had to bury Gregory, to when the queen’s police had followed the Minos to their inn, Walker seemed at the center of a lot of the things
that had gone wrong.

  Should she say something now? But they probably didn’t like people complaining about their superiors—and she wanted to stay with the company for as long as she could.

  They talked a little about the assignment, Ann repeating the things she had said to the others. But she found herself opening up, going into more detail about some of the things that had happened. Da Silva looked at her sympathetically, nodding and smiling as Ann talked.

  “What did you think about the things Meret told you?” Da Silva asked.

  “We thought she was some kind of whack-job, to be honest. Franny and me. We didn’t really know what to make of her. When Walker said that there really was some kind of shadowy organization—well, I have to say I was surprised.”

  “And Meret didn’t mention Core?”

  “No, nothing. Like I said, I’d never heard of Core by the time I talked to Walker.”

  She’d been asked this question so many times that her mind began to wander. Why did they call it Core? What was it supposed to be the core of, anyway? Core, corps, Kore … Of course Kore was pronounced with two syllables—Kor-eh— but still …

  Meret had mentioned Kore, hadn’t she? “Kaphtor’s goddesses are peaceful, Potnia, Eileithyia, Kore, all of them.” What if it was some kind of a password, what if Meret had been trying to see if she or Franny belonged to Core as well, if they were allies?

  And hadn’t Gregory brought up Kore too? “I always liked the Greek gods and goddesses, Kore and Demeter …” he’d said once during lunch. She remembered that because at the time she hadn’t heard of Kore, and she’d wondered if it was a god or goddess, and how Gregory had heard of him or her.

  So did that mean … No. No, it couldn’t be. Her mind hurried from one idea to the next. Gregory was a member of Core. Gregory had died while traveling through time. Meret thought the company might have killed him.

  “Ann?” Da Silva asked. “You look like you’ve remembered something.”

  She forced herself to pay attention. “No. No, sorry. Just thinking about Meret, and if she said anything else. But I’m pretty sure I told you everything.”