Touchstone (Meridian Series) (16 page)

       “Ahmed?
Who’s he?”

       “Nobody
knows. He was a mysterious figure that appeared in
Cairo
just before the Turks were set to land. He called himself the Mahdi, and he
stirred up insurrection in the city.”

       "The
Mahdi? Oh, the Muslims always call on the image of the Mahdi when they want to
stir up trouble. Remember that Shi’ite Mullah in
Iraq
?”

       Paul
thought for a moment. “Muqtada al Sadr? Yes. He raised his Mahdi Militias and
raised hell for a while. Holed up in
An
Najaf
, if I remember. That was
quite a scene at the Shrine of Ali.”

       “Exactly.
These Muslims are always calling up images from their religious mythology to
add propane to their politics. This Ahmed was probably just the same. What
would you say to the disaffected masses of
Cairo
if you
wanted to ignite a revolution against their oppressive Western occupiers? You’d
claim to be divinely guided; you’d claim to be the Mahdi they have been waiting
for all these centuries to liberate them from the deceivers and infidels. The
Arabs have been wrapping their politics in religion for millennia, but I
wouldn’t worry about it.”

       “Be
watchful just the same.”

       Nordhausen
seized on Paul’s concern and drove home a point. “You think this man… you
believe he may be an Assassin—an agent from the future?”

       “I
have my suspicions.” Paul folded his arms, one hand stroking his chin. “There
were several odd things in the history that began to stick out in my mind when
I bored into it again. Did you know that there were at least two obvious
assassination plots against Napoleon during this campaign? The first incident
occurred just after he landed and seized
Alexandria
. Upon entering the city Napoleon and his
party were making their way through a very narrow street and they were fired
upon by a man and a woman with a musket. The second incident was an ambush by a
Nablousian on
the 24
^th
of May, 1799
,  as Napoleon’s
troops retreated from
Syria
. The shot barely missed Napoleon’s head;
they caught the man; four Guides put their carbine muskets to his back and
pulled the triggers simultaneously. Now get this… All four guns misfired and
the man leapt into the
Red Sea
, swimming for all he was worth. The entire
troop fired at him as he went, but not a single shot hit home. He escaped.”

       “Stranger
things have happened,” Nordhausen said, giving Paul a mollifying glance. “What
are you suggesting?”

       “It’s
odd, that’s all. It has a smell about it I don’t like. There were two attempts
on the life of a Prime Mover and both failed. Either Napoleon’s Penumbra was
already solidifying his position in the
Meridian
or… Well that second example was ludicrous!
Very suspicious.”

       “What
do you mean?”

       “I
can see
one
of the carbines failing to fire at the assassin,” Paul
concluded, “even two. But all four?”

       “Are
you suggesting the carbines were…tampered with?”

       “I
don’t know what I’m suggesting, but it seems that the assassin was living a
charmed life too.”

       “Assassin—“
Nordhausen was quick to pick up on that, the connection obvious to Paul’s
discovery at Massiaf.

       Paul
nodded his agreement. “I’m just worried. This is shaping up to be a crucial
Nexus on the
Meridian
. This business about the Rosetta Stone is
becoming a magnet. Both sides could be at play in this, Robert. They could have
agents there for the same reason we’re planning to go. In fact, they have
decades to try and figure out what we’re up to here tonight. Suppose they do?
If anything goes wrong, I’ve got these fallback extraction coordinates
programmed, just in case. Be in
Cairo
, at the fountain square in the city center,
on the night of August 1
^st
. Be there at sunset. Can you remember
that?”

       “August
1
^st
? But we’re only going to be there 48 hours, Paul.”

       “Assuming
all goes well.”

       The
professor stayed his effort to placate his friend and nodded his assent. “You
really are worried.”

       “I’ll
run a Spook Job at sunset on the 1
^st
of August to see if you made
it,” Paul continued, “and every night thereafter until we spot you there.”

       Robert
had a wan expression on his face. “Can we survive that long—in the past, I
mean.?”

       “What?”

       “Remember
your mission to Massiaf? That Jabr fellow told you that the Walkers had but
seven days. You started to fade, and it was just our good fortune that Kelly
snatched you out before …” he seemed to stumble over his own thought now.

       “Before
Paradox took me?” Paul pressed on.

       “Yes.
Paradox. Well if we get stranded there how long will we be able to sustain
ourselves in that
Meridian
?”

       “We
really have no way of knowing. Remember, they were using the Well, and I was
not prepared to go through. In fact, I went through prematurely. Here we have
the Arch.” He was trying to shore up his friend’s resolve now, and bolster his
courage. “We’ll have solid pattern signatures on the two of you. That means we
can run Spook Jobs and use the quantum scan feature of the Arch to try and
locate your patterns. Besides, I don’t see  how Paradox would come into play
here.”

       “You
forget that I know all about the glyphs. It’s all in my head, Paul. How will
time account for that when the Arch plops me down a day
before
the damn
Rosetta Stone was even discovered!” A long silence settled between them until
Paul spoke again.

       “No
worries,” he began. “You’ll be protected in a Nexus for the duration of the
mission—at the very least. After that, you’ll be back here and…” he stopped
himself, needing truth now as he was sending his friend off to centuries past.
He looked at Robert a long time before he spoke again.

       “You
know what they say about discretion being the better part of valor. Just be
careful, Robert. Hear me?”

Part V

Rosetta

“On the sea the boldest steer but where
their ports invite;

But there are wanderers o’er Eternity

Whose bark drives on and on,

and anchor’d ne’er shall be.”

—
Byron:
Childe Harold III.lxx.

13

An
hour later
Robert and Maeve
were down in the Arch watching the dizzying spin of light and shadow. The sound
of the generators was very loud, and Maeve could feel the thrumming vibration
as the Arch moved up to full power. Her throat tightened and her heart
quickened in response. She felt a dreadful sense of fear and anxiety as they edged
up to the thick yellow line that marked the boundary between this reality and
some other. She wanted to close her eyes and shut the moment out, pretend that
she was simply at home in her herb garden and the world was not askew. But a
furtive glance at Nordhausen bolstered her courage. He was gazing at the whirl
of color, his eyes alight with a sense of awe and excitement.

       “Ready?”
he asked, extending a hand.

       “As
ready as I can be,” she said. The professor’s hand closed around hers. She held
fast to her parasol with the other hand, the beaded purse now dangling from her
shoulder by a thin spaghetti strap. Everything was going to be fine, she told
herself. Kelly was on the job in the operations center, and Paul was with him
there, both able technicians. It was just a trial run—a Spook Job, like the
little jump she had made to the Arabic Library to scout out Paul… just a brief
manifestation to make sure their breaching point was clear of contamination in
the target area. It would only be a few seconds…

       Yet
those last few seconds seemed to stretch out to infinity. What was she doing
here? The tingling of the particle infusion sent a shiver to the very core of
her being. How could this work? How could she stand here and have the root of
her life plucked out and tossed into the wind? It was against her every
instinct and desire. Why did she volunteer for this? It was madness!

       Somewhere,
the thinly diffused voice of Kelly came to her, calling down from the control
room on the PA system.

       “Ready
for the big step? On my mark…Three, two, oops…Damn!”

       That
last word jolted her. It was not so much the unexpected invective as it was the
tone of alarm in Kelly’s voice. He had been all business as he counted
down—almost nonchalant. Then something happened. She gaped at Nordhausen,
hoping to find the answer with him, but he was taken up with the thrill of the
hunt and she suddenly felt herself being pulled forward, nearly falling, across
the yellow line.

       There
was a vibrant rush of sound and light, and she instinctively closed her eyes.
“Oh god…forgive me…” The words quavered out, drowned out by Nordhausen’s
gleeful yelp as they passed into another reality.

~

       Up
in the control room Kelly was aghast. He was half way up from his seat, looking
around him in a controlled panic as though he needed something at once.

       “What
happened?” Paul was at the particle infusion station, looking over his
shoulder. The moment Kelly swore, his attention had been jerked away from the
monitors and Paul turned to see Kelly’s face, clearly upset, as he pulled out
his shirt tail and leaned forward over the console desk.

       “Damn,
damn, damn!” He swore again, annoyed with himself.

       “What’s
wrong?” Paul took one last look at the infusion console and started in Kelly’s
direction.

       “I
was counting down and reached for my coffee. Spilled the damn cup all over my
keyboard!”

       Paul
arrived at the workstation, breathless, and saw the mess. The mug was tilted on
its side in a pool of dark coffee. Some of the liquid had run into the gaps
between the keys, and Kelly was trying to swab up the excess liquid with his
shirt tail.

       “Be
careful,” Paul warned. “Watch the chronometer.”

       “I
know—“ Kelly cut himself short as he glanced at the numerical readout on his
console. “What? That’s not right…”

       He
tapped a function key. “Oh, crap! My keyboard must have shorted out. Quick
Paul, I need a replacement—fast!”

       The
urgency in his voice struck Paul like a jolt of electricity. “Where are they?”
he asked. “In the supply room?”

       “Hell,
there’s no time for that. Just yank one out of one of the other consoles.
No—not the history module. Try that one.” Kelly was pointing at an empty
workstation and Paul rushed over, unplugging the keyboard in a quiet rush.

       By
the time he had the board out and over to Kelly’s console he saw that his
friend was just staring at the chronometer in disbelief. He immediately knew
that this was much more than a simple accident. Something was wrong.

~

       The
light gave way to a cold mist that seemed charged with a scintillating static.
Maeve stumbled forward, pulled along by Nordhausen and yet clutching to his
hand as though her life depended on it. They were over the line and into the
Arch. The scene around them disintegrated into darkness as she pressed her eyes
tightly closed. Then the cold… so deep and penetrating that she felt as though
she could never be warm again. It was the cold of infinity, of annihilation, a
graveyard chill that sent uncontrollable shivers through her. For one wild
moment she could not feel the ground under her feet. It was as if she was
suspended in the air, feather light, or falling in an uncontrolled rush to
oblivion. Then her feet felt the substance of something firm again, and the
pull of gravity returned. She fell onto her knees, deeply shaken, and the
beaded purse that had been dangling from her shoulder, slipped to the floor.
The odor of ozone came to her, along with a sickly sweet smell that she could
not quite place.

       Nordhausen
still had hold of her hand, his grip tight and firm. She opened her eyes to see
that they were both enveloped in a gray fog, infused with a sheen of pale green
light that was accented by faint sparks, like fireflies on a misty night.
Tremors of cold still rippled through her body, but they grew still, and the
warmth of life returned to her—a feeling of substance and presence, and weight.