The excitement of such a journey had completely chased away his anxiety. “Well if the car is waiting let’s go.” Alone in the lift, James found himself studying Cassandra. But as soon as she returned the stare, he began to feel uncomfortable and broke the silence, “Perhaps during the trip we can discuss our two histories. I would love to find out what happened here, and I can tell you how it differs from mine.”
Cassandra smiled, “Of course. That’s why we are traveling by car.”
Outside the building walking to the car, Cassandra turned and said, “See your tunic is perfect. No one has given you any unusual looks, well that is not quite true. I have seen a couple of women stare, but that was a stare of longing. You do look pretty good.”
James chuckled, “So you are an expert on observing people’s reactions?”
“Yes. I am. I have been stared at my whole life, and one gets pretty good at detecting who is staring and why.”
The car was parked only a few steps from the front entrance. It looked to James like a big soap bubble with four large leather reclining chairs. As the two approached, the canopy dematerialized, and Cassandra motioned for James to take a seat.
He shrugged and asked. “Which one.”
“It doesn’t make any difference. They are all four the same”
“Well what about the controls? I don’t see any steering mechanism? How do you drive it?”
Cassandra started to giggle, but when she noticed his confusion was genuine, she stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh, that was unkind. The car is controlled from my data pad, well sort of. Ground sensors, satellite monitors and computer control the vehicle. My data pad just instructs the system where we wish to go. You don’t think for a minute, I would get into a vehicle traveling more than two hundred miles per hour, controlled by a human, do you?”
As they got in and sat down the car rocked slightly, and with a look half way between excitement and concern, James asked, “What does this ride on? I didn’t see any wheels. Is it a magnetic field?”
“No. Magnetic levitation fields were abandoned hundreds of years ago. They proved to be too expensive to build and maintain. This system is a new experimental prototype recently developed here at the institute. There is no doubt it will revolutionize the transportation industry. It operates on a new antigravity mechanism.”
James smile had completely vanished as she said, “Experimental?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t take you if it were risky. The system had been thoroughly tested and retested. We have already stated production on several military versions, and the military won’t take any system until they are convinced of its worthiness.”
James thought about the Osprey prototypes that had crashed during testing in his world, gulped and sat down.
Cassandra programmed their destination, engaged the drive and sat back to watch James’s expression. The vehicle immediately accelerated to its cursing speed, but the passengers felt very little sensation of acceleration. The drive technology manipulated the force of gravity acting on the vehicle while keeping the interior force constant.
James was mesmerized as he watched the landscape speed by. This was truly a unique sensation, he thought. It is almost like watching one of those three hundred sixty-degree theaters in the round, everything was moving past at blinding speed, but the only sensation of movement came from what your eye told you.
The silence inside the vehicle was broken when Cassandra asked, “Does this look much different than the London you know?”
“I wish I could say, but this is my first trip to England. I have seen pictures of all the famous land marks. I just don’t know where they are or are supposed to be.”
The interior once again became quiet while James stared at the passing terrain in amazement. His trance was interrupted twenty minutes later when Cassandra asked, “Tell me James, what happened in your world? You said Hadrian followed Trajan and the empire collapsed.”
Just as he began to turn and answer her question, the vehicle cleared Dover. As soon as it passed the cliffs, the craft descended and accelerated. The visual effect was so intense James feared he might become ill. Once again there was almost no sensation of movement inside the craft, but the eye can convince the mind of almost anything. In this case, the sight of plunging toward the English Channel was enough to convince James’s mind he was about to die.
Once the vehicle settled over the channel and accelerated toward France, James let out the breath he had been holding, and quickly refilled and emptied his lungs several times. His pallor must have deteriorated during the fall, because he heard Cassandra ask in an anxious voice, “James what is it? Are you, all right?”
James nodded and said, “I’m fine, but that was pretty intense. For a moment it looked like we were going to crash into the channel.”
“Oh … I guess I should have told you, it is almost impossible to make this crash. There is triple redundancy built into the antigravity generator. If one fails, the second or third automatically takes over. In severe stress testing, these things have been known to bounce but never crash.”
“Yeah, that would have been nice to know.” He said, once his adrenalin had subsided to a manageable level. “Now what did you ask me?” He wanted to change subject and give his mind something else to do far away from this visual onslaught.
“Are you sure? We can wait, if you would prefer to just enjoy the sights for a bit longer.”
“Cassandra, we are over the English Channel. There is nothing to look at.”
“That’s true. Very well, I asked what happened after Trajan? How did this Hadrian get to be Emperor?”
James internally breathed a sigh of relief. This would take his mind off the ride. He turned and looked into Cassandra’s eyes while he contemplated what to say. “Well in my world Trajan and his wife Pompeia never had any children. Trajan adopted his nephew Hadrian, as his heir, and the Empire was passed to him. It is rumored, or at least some of the few remaining writings indicate, Trajan was enamored with young boys and wine, and there is speculation that is why they didn’t have any children.”
Cassandra began shaking her head, “No that is not so.” She said. “History does record Trajan enjoyed the company of boys, but they were only observed in his presents while he was campaigning. When in Rome, he was devoted to Pompeia. It was my ancestor Marcus Vespus that helped Trajan sire an heir. He was able to identify and treat Pompiea’s infertility problem. She conceived and delivered a healthy son. Trajan’s gratitude was unimaginable, and my family has been bound to the Imperial family ever since.”
“Well that must be it,” James said.
“That must be what?”
“That must be when our two worlds diverged, because Trajan did not father any children with Pompeia in my world. But what confuses me is how? How did your ancestor help Trajan and Pompeia conceive? The historical record indicates most of the Roman aristocracy was infertile by the time of Trajan’s rule. Many of my colleagues believe the infertility was just one of the symptoms of lead poising.”
Cassandra smiled, “It seems your colleagues were correct. Marcus convinced Trajan, lead was poising all Rome, and it was the main reason for Pompeia’s infertility. The two drastically changed Roman life and eliminated all lead from the diet. That was just before Trajan left on the Dacian campaign. When he returned to Rome two years later Pompeia became pregnant with his son Trajan the great.”
James just stared into Cassandra’s lovely brown eyes and smiled as she told the story of Trajan and Marcus. The smile must have been infectious because soon she too was smiling. “Why are you smiling?”
“There are as many theories about the fall of the Roman Empire as there are historians. I always felt the lead issue could have been one of the major catalysts leading to the demise. And you have just confirmed it.” James paused and reflected, then grinning slightly continued, “Oh, how I want to share this with the rest of the history department, but if I ever get back, and tr
y to tell anyone about this, I’m sure to be committed.”
A feeling of melancholy began to descend as his thoughts roamed between where he came from and where he was, but he immediately shook it off. He absolutely refused to allow any negative thoughts to interfere with the excitement of learning a new world history. A smile slowly began to form at the corners of his mouth as his thoughts returned to the present. “I always thought lead was a major culprit, but how did they get it out of the diet. It was in everything?”
“As I understand it, my ancestor Marcus, conducted experiments on slaves. The data he obtained proved lead was the problem. Once Trajan was convinced, he simply made it an imperial decree to get lead out of the food and wine the Romans consumed.”
James shook his head, “That sounds simple, but it’s not enough. The Roman Legion may have run on porridge, but Roman society ran on wine, and the only wine preservative available was the lead acetate formed in the defrutum sapa. Lead acetate was poured in every amphora of wine made in the Empire. Wine that was shipped all over the world.”
Cassandra began frowning during James comments, but as he watched her, he didn’t see the frown. The only thing that registered in his mind was how beautiful she was. It didn’t make any difference whether she was smiling or befuddled. Without taking his eyes off her, he added, “Cassandra there must be more.”
“There is.” She answered. “I have heard this story since I was a little girl, but since I’m not a wine maker, I never fully understood, and I’m not certain I do today. Why did wine need to be preserved? We keep wine for years at our vineyards in Tuscany. There is no preservative added. Why did they need a preservative in Trajan’s time?”
“I think you will find that is not true.”
“What is untrue?” She asked.
“They do use a preservative at your Tuscan vineyard. It is only a tiny amount of sulfite. There is a good chance if they didn’t, the wine would turn to vinegar. There are lots of reasons to add chemicals to wine, but one of the most important is to kill the microbes that made the wine in the first place, and that’s why defrutum sapa, lead acetate, was added to wine during Trajan’s time. Without it, the microbes keep working and turn the wine to vinegar.”
“So, you have to kill the yeast?”
James nodded, and noticed Cassandra was staring at him with a blank expression, an expression that gradually turned to a smile. “Oh, I get it. After all these years I get it.”
“Get it? What do you mean get it?”
“James, I have spent my entire life running from two things. One was Rome and the elitists’ attitude of the bureaucrats and all their minions, and the other was the life sciences. It has always been a tradition, no an obligation, for a science minded Vespus to pursue a medical or life science career and serve at the Vespus Clinic in Rome. I wanted nothing to do with either, but I did find science and mathematics fascinating, so I studied physics.
“Growing up, I was repeatedly told the story how Marcus Vespus saved Rome and the Empire. Part of that story was conducting scientific experiments on the slaves to prove his hypothesis, that lead was destroying the Empire. The second part was getting it out of the diet and how he did it. I heard it so many times I could recite it but didn’t understand.”
James found himself mesmerized watching Cassandra tell her story, and found he didn’t want her to stop, “Okay, so now you get it, but what didn’t you understand?”
“You were right. It was not just a matter of making an Imperial decree to cease using lead. You see, I grew up around the Emperor. He and his children got whatever they wanted. He simply just made it an Imperial decree, and it was done. When I was told Trajan made an Imperial decree to get rid of lead, I quit listing to the story. In my mind that was all that needed to be done.
“But you were right. It wasn’t enough. Several months after Trajan’s decree, he was faced with a potential insurrection. The wine, the Empire depended on, was all going bad. Trajan summonsed my ancestor Marcus and told him if he did not find a way to preserve the wine, he would be forced to withdraw the Imperial decree.
“Marcus was convinced if lead was once again used, it would lead to the destruction of the Empire, and set to work on finding a solution.” Cassandra paused, and with a smile glanced up at the sky.
“Don’t stop. Obviously, Marcus found a solution. What was it?” James implored.
“Marcus had already been working on a theory. He simply speeds up his work and perfected his methods. He presented it to the Emperor, several weeks later. He had managed to separate, what was the term he used, ‘the essence of the wine’.” She paused once again, but this time, James was smiling like the Cheshire cat. “You know?”
“Sure. He invented distillation. ‘The essence of the wine’ was the alcohol.”
“Damn you! She said grinning and giving James a playful nudge. I have heard this story countless times and just now understand the significance, and you, not even a scientist, get it before I’m even done telling the story.
“Marcus found that by adding essence back to raw wine he could preserve it. As you pointed out, kill the microbes with the alcohol. That solved the wine spoilage problem. After that wine kept nicely during transportation and storage. Marcus later discovered a method to measure density and could determine exactly how much ‘essence’ needed to be added to each batch of wine to preserve it properly.
“With an ample, and for the first-time consistent wine supply, the insurrection was avoided, and the rest is history.”
Her last sentence was like a slap in the face. The two of them had made a connection during the trip. He could feel it. It was bright, and warm, but how could it be. She said the rest is history. Whose history? Not his. He was attracted to her, yet the two of them shouldn’t be.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, “Did I leave something out. Didn’t I get it right?”
James turned and looked out the window at the passing French countryside. Without really looking at anything in particular he said, “‘The rest is history’. Perhaps for you, here in this world, where I came from, it was a thousand years after Trajan’s reign before the art of distilling sprits was practiced. Our worlds are so different. They have been getting more and more different every day for the last nineteen hundred years.” He slowly turned to once again face her, “Please don’t get me wrong. On the one hand this is a history professor’s fantasy. To make a change and see what happens to history. The debates I could have with my colleagues at the University. I can feel the adrenalin rush from the discussion just thinking about it. But on the other hand, if I do get back, I won’t be able to tell anyone about this experience. I wonder, what good is knowledge if it cannot be shared?”
Chapter 7
- The Line is Drawn -
Marcus Vespus entered the third-floor conference room at exactly seven thirty. It was the largest conference room at the institute, and it was full even at this early hour. Marcus nodded to several of the senior researchers as he made his way to the conference table in the center of the room. He took the open chair at the head of the table and began, “Good morning.” There was a gentle rumble of acknowledgement from the assembled researchers. “I have been subpoenaed to testify at the Senate committee, investigating the alleged mishandling of the virus problem by this institute. The committee meeting starts at ten thirty. For the next two hours, I want executive summaries and enough detail on each project to deflect any of the Senator’s attacks on this institution. Since I am already intimately familiar with most of the projects, after you have given the executive summary, please concentrate on only the latest results. Each team leader has fifteen minutes. Are there any questions?”
A skinny pail researcher from the antigen-grafting group raised his hand, “Dr Vespus?”
“Yes, Dr. Clavious. What is your question?”
“Dr. Vespus, I noticed Dr. Singh and his team are absent. Should we send someone to get them? They are rumored to have developed a promising antiviral techn
ique.”
Maintaining a steely demeanor Marcus answered. “Dr. Clavious, you are never to discuss any rumor you may have heard about Singh’s work, outside of this institute. If you do, there is a good chance your next assignment will be sifting sand on Mars. That goes for everyone else in this room. I don’t know what has been said about Dr. Singh’s research, but whatever you have heard stays here. The gods help anyone found discussing institute business with outsiders.
“Let’s just say at this point Dr. Singh’s work is not for public consumption.”
What Marcus knew, but his researchers did not, was this Senate investigation was not intended to be a friendly convivial chat. This was the beginning of a Senate power play to wrestle control of the Ministry from the Imperial branch of government. Marcus had no intention of providing them with any information that could aid the Senate, and there was no way for him to determine what the Senate would do with knowledge of Singh’s research. One thing was certain; however, it would be twisted into a form that would be damaging to the Ministry and the Emperor. Marcus would not allow Senate politicians to damage a relationship, which has protected the health and safety of the Empire’s citizens for two thousand years. There was no doubt in his mind, if control of this Ministry were to be passed to a Senatorial committee, all meaningful research focus would be lost. The Ministry would become just as ineffective, as every other organization run by government committee.
“If there are no more questions we may as well start. Dr. Clavious please begin first.”
“Yes sir.” Said the nervous researcher. “We have identified several potential antigens that when grafted on the surface of the virus will invoke an appropriate immune response. Do date….”
For the next two hours, one after the other, Team Leaders came forward and reported on their projects and progress. Fortunately, Marcus has spent most of the previous evening studying the projects and was almost as familiar with the work as the Team Leader reporting. Of course, most of the evening was not all. There was still time to include a leisurely bath with Irena. gods, she put him in a good frame of mind.
Blood on the Water Page 6