Ash: A Secret History (197 page)

They don’t have much trouble with the theoretical idea that one massive change of this sort could take place, and the genetic mutation itself be one of the things that was rendered non-actual.

What Tami, in particular, kept hammering on at me about – in that unstoppable way she has – is the fact that evidence is both being eradicated (the Angelotti manuscript) and coming back (Carthage).

I have told her my theory: that BOTH the ‘Wild Machines’ and Burgundy must have been wiped out. If nothing else, it is the only theory that can explain why we are not non-existent ourselves, and the world the province of silicon machine intelligences; and why we do not have, in our history, a Visigoth Empire. Why the Arab and black African cultures appear to have been ‘patched in’, in place of the Visigoths, after the change.

We are used to history affecting us only in the sense that past actions affect us all. History may be reinterpreted: it does not alter. THIS history is still affecting us now. We are changing, now. I do not understand why.

Things ARE changing. That’s what bothers Tami. The ROVs are 1000 metres down, clearing debris with pressurised jets. And Carthage is there. Now. Again.

That said, Tamiko has pointed out, from my last translated section of the Sible Hedingham manuscript, a further confusion – that, in the manuscript, the Stone Golem is destroyed. And yet, we have the Stone Golem. We discovered it *intact* in Carthage.

If the Sible Hedingham ms is in error on the point, that shakes my whole confidence in it! How much else could be wrong?

Can it be document error? Or is this a different golem – had King-Caliph Gelimer already advanced a programme to produce more; was House Leofric advanced enough to create another one – more than one? Or is there something in this hellishly impenetrable bad mediaeval Latin that I’ve translated wrongly? Or, is there something in the remaining part of the Sible Hedingham manuscript that explains this?

I will sleep for four hours, then continue the translation.

– Pierce

  Message: #234 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    20/12/00 at 11.22 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

Send me whatever you have, I’ll look at it over the Christmas break.

I’m going down to see William Davies again, later today.

He phoned to tell me he’s been reading some of the Sible Hedingham manuscript aloud to his brother. He told me he did a lot after the war on the psychology of trauma; he got interested in it as part of the recovery from surgery.

He _thinks_ Vaughan is reacting to hearing it, even in the original Latin. The problem is, William only knows medical Latin; mediaeval Latin isn’t like that of any other period; he doubts he’s deciphering it properly – Pierce, basically he wants to know if he can have access to your English translation.

I know how you feel about confidentiality. William wouldn’t breach that. Can I do this?

– Anna

  Message: #428 (Anna Longman)

Subject: Ash

Date:    21/12/00 at 12.02 p.m.

From:    Ngrant@

Anna –

Isobel’s team are bringing up the Stone Golem.

I thought it would take months, but it seems it can be raised pretty damn fast when it looks like the Tunisian government might be about to take the opportunity away from us.

The sky is full of helicopters, and the military have a patrol ship on station. At the land-site, a lot of the local arrangements for food and transport have dried up. Colonel ██████ arrived back there, far less jovial, and with far more men. Trucks all over the place. ‘Perimeter security’, he says. They haven’t had any severe security problems in the last weeks, so why now? Why all these men in uniform, who don’t care WHERE they put their feet?

Isobel says Minister ██████ is becoming concerned about ‘Western exploitation of local cultural resources’. Well, as a Westerner, I hardly expect to be popular in this part of the world, and I can see their point. But, Isobel signed a contract with the government when this expedition was first mooted, agreeing that no artefacts should be removed from Tunisian territory. What kind of a person do they think she is?

Cynicism might lead one to think this is all about who will gain financially, but I may be doing the Minister a disservice. Whether his concern is genuine or not – and I suspect it is perfectly genuine – what I can’t see is any way of pointing out that this site’s remains are not from HIS culture!

I have had to leave the translation. I have to be here when they bring up the Stone Golem.

You have my full permission to show this partial translation of the Sible Hedingham ms to William Davies. If it helps Vaughan Davies, then that would only be a small repayment for the debt of scholarship we owe to him.

– Pierce

  Message: #236 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    21/12/00 at 01.07 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

I’m worried. When I got back from East Anglia, I found that someone had broken in and been through my personal files. And my hard disk. When I got to the office this morning – same thing. And not like a burglary. Too neat.

I think I would just have stayed puzzled if I hadn’t phoned a friend of mine. Yes, I’m in a fairly obscure area of academic publishing, but I do have friends in investigative journalism. He’s one of them. His first reaction was, this must be some kind of ‘security’ thing.

I hadn’t thought it through, before. The Middle East has been nothing but terrorism and war for years; if you have found something on the seabed that records say isn’t there – my friend suggests there are bound to be ‘spooks’. People are bound to be investigating, aren’t they? Especially if the news is getting out.

Pierce, I KNOW this sounds alarmist. But it wasn’t just somebody breaking in and trashing my place. Depending on how you feel about being interviewed by security people, if you’ve been keeping copies of these messages, you might want to wipe your (or Isobel’s) disk. And if you’ve got hardcopies, shred them.

I don’t usually keep copies of my mail, I don’t have the disk space, but I do usually keep a paper copy in a file. Because you were so concerned about academic confidentiality, I’ve been even more careful; hence public-key encryption of the actual messages. In fact, I had taken the paper copies and floppy disk in a folder down to the sheltered accommodation in Colchester with me, yesterday, thinking I might need them to refresh my memory if Vaughan did finally say something – you know I’m not an academic myself. So I still have them.

I’m putting them in store, somewhere safe. If this IS something official, then they can come to me officially, with a warrant. Then it’s fine. But not before.

I’m going to talk to the MD in an hour, see what his position on this is. He’d better stand by me on this one.

– Anna

  Message: #430 (Anna Longman)

Subject: Ash

Date:    22/12/00 at 09.17 a.m.

From:    Ngrant@

Anna –

We’re out.

Things have been so confused, I don’t know if it’s been on the media, given Christmas will be taking over the UK – we’re supposed to be out of Tunisian territory completely now, they don’t even like us hanging about in offshore waters.

I’m putting this out on the net to as many people as I can reach. Talk to your media contacts. Kick up a fuss. They CAN’T shut this site off from scientific excavation! They can’t KIDNAP archaeological evidence! It just isn’t right: we have to know.

On consideration, of course, we don’t ‘have’ to. That is a preoccupation very much of our time. ‘Nothing must stand in the way of the discovery of the truth.’ In other parts of history, of course, there are other priorities: ‘nothing is as important as’ ideology, say, or commerce, or military force.

GOD DAMN IT, I WANT TO KNOW. They can’t do this to us!

– Pierce

  Message: #240 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    22/12/00 at 10.04 a.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

Had you got the Stone Golem up from the ruins of Carthage? Where is the messenger-golem from the land-site? Pierce, what is happening, I can’t do anything if I don’t know the _facts_.

– Anna

  Message: #431 (Anna Longman)