Close Up the Sky

by James L. Ferrell

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, changing the subject. “What’s the purpose of these time trips? What do we gain from them?"

  "Historical verification for the most part. That's what most of them are about."

  "Historical verification?" he repeated.

  They came to a halt at the elevator doors leading to the surface and Taylor punched the button as she answered him. "I mean establishing whether or not a particular event really took place, who was involved, when, where…….that sort of thing. Some of them involve geological research, but many of the expeditions are classified. Only a few individuals with top-secret clearances like Dr. Durant or Dr. Kasdan would know about the findings."

  Leahy pulled thoughtfully at his lower lip for a couple of seconds then asked, "What about Edward's last trip before the murders? Do you remember what it was about?"

  "Not really. Do you want me to check on it?"

  “Don’t bother. I have a hunch we’re about to find out anyway,” he said. “By the way, when do we leave for Albuquerque?"

  She consulted her watch and said, "By noon at the latest. If we started now, we'd be late. Mike and I already have our gear, but you and Chuck need to be outfitted."

  "Before we do that I need to get in touch with Pierce. He'll be expecting a call tonight and he won't get one. I'll try to contact him by telephone first, but if that doesn't work we'll have to get a message to him.” He looked at her and asked, "If I can't get him by phone can you arrange through Major Durham to get a message to him by chopper?"

  She nodded. "He'll see it's delivered. What are you going to tell him?"

  "As little as possible until I see him in person. I mainly want him to run a check on somebody. I'll tell him in the note that we'll call him from the airport between two-thirty and three. He should be able to get the information I need by then. I don’t know what else we can do. You want to add something?"

  She considered it for a few seconds then shook her head.

  The elevator doors opened with a hiss and they stepped inside. Leahy felt the usual stomach drop as it snatched them upward. "What's the first thing on the agenda?" he asked.

  A sly smile crept across her face. "Wardrobe," she answered. "I can't wait to see what you look like in a loincloth."

  "Loincloth," he laughed, shaking his head. "Well, let's make it as fast as possible. I want to use Dr. Durant’s computer terminal for a few minutes. I think I might know what the password is for that attachment."

  Leahy had been unable to get in touch with Pierce by telephone, so he had composed a note for delivery by helicopter. Fifteen minutes after giving it to Taylor he was alone in front of the computer terminal in Durant’s office.

  He had been correct in his assumption that he could break the password protecting the hidden file. It was a word that he and his family had used many times over the years. He had written it himself on letters to his brother while he was away at college. When Edward was a child he had begun a collection of geological specimens from every vacation spot they had visited. A half-dozen glass cases lined the walls of his room at their home, each filled with stones of every imaginable color and texture. Everyone in the family knew his future. First and last he was bound to be a geologist. During those childhood years his fascination with geology had earned him his nickname, and it had stuck with him through college and into adulthood. They called him 'Rocks'. After he graduated from college and entered the professional world he began using his given name, and the nickname had fallen into disuse. Now, nobody other than a close family member ever referred to him as Rocks. The use of his nickname as a password was the surest way for Edward to make certain that no one other than his brother, or another family member, would ever read this incredible file without his permission. It was almost as though he had anticipated his disappearance and expected his big brother to come after him. There was no other explanation for the password. He wanted to somehow make sure that Matt was aware of the enormity of certain facts in the event he became involved at some future date.

  Leahy leaned back in his chair and stared at the computer screen. He now knew what Babylon Station was and why it was imperative that the missing stellarite be recovered as quickly as possible. It also explained the phone call from the president the night he had sat in Durant's office listening to the story of the time machine. It did not answer the question of Edward's disappearance, but it was obvious that he had been part of the fantastic operation from the beginning. It was also a certainty that Durant knew of Babylon Station's existence. Without his support it would have been impossible to successfully carry out an operation of that magnitude. It was also a certainty that neither the scientist nor anyone else had broken Edward's password or the file would have been instantly erased. If Babylon Station was ever exposed it would undoubtedly mean another world war and the end of civilization as man knew it.

  Leahy had no idea who else might have knowledge of the project. At this point the players were virtually unknown, but he had the feeling that they would reveal themselves in one way or another as the drama continued to unfold. There was only one other person he would trust with a secret as well guarded as Babylon Station, and that was Taylor. He did not believe that she had any knowledge of the operation or she would have told him by now. Like him, she also believed that their mission to recover the stellarite was to save the lives of the trapped time agents. He shook his head and continued to stare at the data on the computer screen. When compared to the success or failure of Babylon Station, the lives of those men and women paled to insignificance.

  He was surprised to find that he had mixed emotions about his new knowledge. If the project succeeded, it would probably eliminate many of the despicable acts of terrorism that had plagued the world for so long. There would be no further need for Western interference in the affairs of Middle Eastern nations. On the other hand, it could also mean such a huge shift in the balance of economic power in favor of the West that eventual war might be a foregone conclusion. He was anxious to share the information with Taylor, but he would have to use extreme caution in picking the proper place. He decided that the safest time and place would be after they had transported into the past.

  Back in his apartment, he gathered his gear and took one last look around. Though he had only used it for a short time, it was home. He hoped it would not be the last time he saw it. "God help us," he whispered to himself. He picked up his pack and went out to meet his team.

  Ryan Pierce, obviously upset, burst through the doors of the Crimes Against Persons section of the police department and confronted the lone detective on duty. He had been told by the front desk receptionist that a helicopter had delivered a sealed envelope for him, and he was furious because he had not been notified. “Where’s the message McDonald?" he almost screamed.

  "On your desk," the other man answered quickly. He followed Pierce across the room and watched nervously as he snatched the envelope up from his desk. "Now damn it, Ryan, don't get pissed with me," he said in a pleading tone. "Nobody told me anything about it being an emergency. How was I to know?"

  Pierce was tearing at the end of the envelope. “How long has this been here?” he demanded through clenched teeth.

  McDonald shrugged and said, "I'm not sure. Maybe since just after lunch."

  "What!" Pierce exploded. "That was over five hours ago!" He rolled his eyes at the ceiling and shook his head in disgust. "Didn't the fact that it was delivered by a military helicopter give you a clue that it might be important?"

  McDonald held his arms out in a gesture of helplessness. Pierce was his superior officer, and this mistake could hurt his chances for promotion to detective first-class. "I didn't see any helicopter, Sarge," he pleaded. "One of the clerks brought it in. You know I'd have got you in a hurry if I had known it was that hot."

  Pierce ignored him. He was totally engrossed in Leahy’s note. When he finished reading it, he snapped another question at McDonald. "Did somebody by the name of Leahy call here
around two-thirty or three o'clock?"

  McDonald swallowed hard and shook his head. "Not to my knowledge," he lied. In fact, he had been carrying on a personal telephone conversation with a female clerk in the records room when the call came in asking for Pierce. The man said it was important, but then everyone said that. He took the man's number and promised to find Pierce right away. Instead, he returned to his conversation with the girl and forgot about it. He cast a furtive glance at the yellow sticky note lying on his desk where he had written the message from Leahy. He had started the lie, now he would have to finish it. After all, he had not identified himself when he answered the phone, so this man Leahy did not know to whom he had talked. He hoped Pierce would not see the note before he could destroy it.

  "You sure?" Pierce demanded. "This says he was going to call from the airport."

  McDonald spread his hands in front of him. "No calls, Sarge. I'm sure."

  Pierce eyed him closely then read the message again. He felt the blood drain from his face as he jerked Leahy’s original note from his pocket and compared the two pieces of paper. With trembling fingers he picked up the phone and dialed a number inside the police department. When the phone was answered on the other end he said, "Hunt, this is Pierce. Take a look at the papers we recovered with that body at the airport. What's the name again?" There was a pause, then he swallowed hard. "You sure?" Another pause. "Yeah, thanks, Hunt." He hung the phone up and sat perfectly still, staring at the wall.

  McDonald, who had been listening to the one-sided conversation, sat down at his own desk and surreptitiously crumpled the sticky note. "You okay, Sarge? You look like you just saw a ghost or something."

  Pierce slowly turned his head and stared at him without expression. Then, without answering, he snatched up the phone and began dialing. "Oh, God," he said as he dialed. "Oh hell!"

  Leahy watched the two Land Rovers disappear around the edge of a low hill, leaving swirling clouds of dust in the air. The late afternoon sky was a deep shade of blue, totally unmarred except for the contrail of an aircraft high overhead. He shaded his eyes from the sun and squinted at the plane. He wondered if it was the same military ship that had delivered them to Egypt two hours before. He watched it for a few seconds then dismissed the thought. It was travelling in the wrong direction to be headed toward home.

  He dropped his eyes from the sky and looked around the horizon. The drivers of the rented Land Rovers had dropped his team and their equipment off in a remote section of the desert near the Valley of the Kings. A few miles to the south, a small range of low hills jutted rocky peaks against the skyline. To the west, two large mountains with steep sides and flat tops occupied the terrain. Other than that, there was nothing to break the seemingly endless expanse of reddish-brown sand and broken stone.

  The sun felt hot on his face but the L-suit kept his body relatively comfortable. He looked up again, not really expecting to see anything, but knowing that somewhere beyond his range of vision where blue sky turned into the blackness of space, a satellite was preparing to transmit the beam of energy that would hurl them over three thousand years into the past. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. In spite of all the mental preparation he had made, the thought was still awe-inspiring. He tried to imagine how the landscape might have changed in three thousand years. How much had the distant mountains been worn down by wind and water; were their flat tops once more jagged? Was the small patch of desert on which they now stood a safe place to be, or would they materialize inside a hill long since worn away by the elements? Would the air turn to crystal and have a different smell once freed of its burden of modern pollutants? In those ancient days was the water pure and safe to drink without being subjected to tons of chemicals? And what about man? Were his numbers still so small in comparison to today's population that the Earth would seem relatively empty?

  He thought of Pierce and the fact that he had not returned his call at the airport. Something had obviously gone wrong, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit. Now, he was about to plunge into a time where he might desperately need the information he had requested. A stream of sweat trickled down the side of his face and he realized that his hands were trembling. He took a deep breath and exhaled hard. The sudden depletion of oxygen sent a soothing sensation through his body and relaxed his nerves.

  “Anxiety and excitement are always at war with each other the first time,” Taylor soothed, seeing his nervousness. “I remember being simultaneously thrilled and terrified. But after the first trip it's never the same. You get used to it."

  "Does it hurt?" He pretended to be serious, then grinned. "I'm allergic to pain."

  "You can say that again," added Williams, who had also been watching the sky. "How much time do we have before.........?" he let the question trail off, not really expecting anyone to answer.

  Summerhour picked up his pack and put it on. As though anticipating a shock he jerked on the strap ends, pulling them tight against his shoulders. "Apache Point will transmit the energy beam sixty seconds after they receive our signal," he said. He took a small black box from his pocket and pressed his thumb against the lower right corner. In response, a cover at the top popped up revealing a tiny screen with a row of lighted numerals. Beneath each numeral was a button that could be used to change the numbers up or down.

  Leahy recognized it as one of the homing devices the agents called pagers. Each member of the group had a pager identical to the one in Summerhour's hand. The only difference was that an individual pager would respond only to the thumbprint of its owner. Under no circumstances could he open Summerhour's and vice versa. The reasoning behind it was one of safety. Once opened, anyone could use a pager to reach through time and activate the Chronocom. Though precautions were taken to see that it never happened, there was always the danger that an open pager could fall into the hands of one of the ancients. Opening only to a particular thumbprint prevented potentially disastrous incidents.

  "Better put on your equipment," Summerhour added as he glanced skyward. Although he knew nothing would be visible, habit made him look in the general direction of the satellite.

  They followed his instructions then waited while he manipulated the buttons on his pager. When he was satisfied with the setting, he closed the flap. The action caused the pager to emit a loud beep. "Sixty seconds," he warned. His voice seemed overly loud in the still air.

  "Any special instructions?" asked Williams in a nervous voice.

  Summerhour shook his head and squinted at the sky. "Just keep your feet firmly planted and flex your knees. There's no shock from the energy beam, but there's a possibility that the ground you’re standing on may be of a different configuration after the transfer. We'll be deposited on whatever surface was on this spot three thousand years ago, whether it's level or not."

  Leahy tightened the straps of his pack as he had seen Summerhour do. The jerking motion caused a rivulet of sweat to break loose from his hairline and trickle down his face. He noticed that Williams seemed unusually composed, a condition that belied the nervousness in his voice. He was about to make a comment about it when Summerhour announced the remaining time.

  "Ten seconds."

  Taylor reached out and held his hand.

  "Should we say good luck, or is that bad luck?" he asked her.

  "It's as easy as falling down Alice’s rabbit hole," she responded.

  Her reply was the last words he heard in the twenty-first century.

  Chapter 11

  Ramses II, King of Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, and Favored of Amen, stood on the west terrace of his palace gazing in the direction of the Valley of the Kings. The city of Thebes spread out below him in maze-like profusion. Its buildings glowed orange in the slanting rays of the morning sun, and waves of heat made the distant hills of the desert move in a wavering dance. Beyond the city flowed the glassine ribbon of the Nile, Mother of Egypt. On the river a barge moved northward carrying its burden of grain and trade goods to distant Memph
is. Water droplets cascading from its straining oars caught the sunlight and sparkled like diamonds in the clear air.

  The sun was warm, so Pharaoh was attired only in a short white kilt and sandals. Though in his middle fifties, he gave the appearance of a much younger man. He stood with his arms folded across his bare chest, his back straight, bald head held high. His arms and chest were well muscled and firm, and his darkly tanned face was relatively unmarred by the passage of years. Penetrating brown eyes and a large aquiline nose gave him a hawkish appearance, a look complimented by his reputation in war, but belied by his statesmanship. Two narrow bands of silver encircled each of his upper arms and his kilt was edged in gold bunting. Other than that, he wore nothing to indicate his lofty status as the Living God of Egypt.

  In all the annals of history, Egypt had not known a more venerated or feared king. He was the undisputed ruler of civilization from the jungles of Ethiopia to the shores of the great northern sea. His sword had spilled the blood of Egypt's enemies for over thirty years, and in all that time he had known true fear only once. Today the king knew its bitter taste again, and felt its icy fingers touch his heart. Unconsciously, he stroked his left forearm where a jagged scar ran from elbow to wrist; a scar put there many years ago during a great battle with the sea people. Sometimes in dreams he still felt the searing metal rake his flesh.

  He cut his eyes slightly to the left. Though he could not see it at this distance, he thought of a place where the Valley of the Kings ended and the great desert began. In his mind's eye he saw a bright streak of fire in the night sky as the gods hurled a flaming star to the Earth. It had been the eve of his birthday, and the priests had interpreted the event as an omen predicting eternal life and wealth for the pharaoh. Members of his personal guard and many slaves proceeded to examine the place where the star had fallen. They returned with a magnificent glowing stone that he had named the Eye of Amen. With his own hands, and in great reverence, he had placed the stone on the altar of the sacred temple and gave thanks to the gods. Afterwards, he had knelt and prayed for hours while the Eye filled the temple with beautiful green radiance. All the jewels in his treasury could not compare with its scintillating splendor. Throughout the entire world there was nothing as magnificent as the Eye, and he alone, the Living God of Egypt, possessed it.