Corrupting Dr. Nice (4 page)

They reached a street of multi-story apartments with shops at the street level. On the mezzanine of one a pair of girls were playing, singing a song. Within a market colonnade cooks haggled with vendors while their slaves waited, carrying baskets of figs, vegetables, freshly slaughtered poultry. Even the tallest of the Roman men, like most historicals, were half a foot shorter than Owen Vannice, and his height alone was attracting attention, to say nothing of his babbling on in some strange tongue. Owen was so intent on his explanation he noticed none of this. He stepped on the tail of a dog that was lapping water from a mud hole in the middle of the street. The dog squealed and ran off, and Owen tromped into the mud, splashing August's calves. "I'm sorry, sir!"

Genevieve watched August repress his annoyance. "Quite all right, son. You seem to be more scholar than dancer."

"Actually, Mother sent me to ballet classes for five years. I had to wear tights."

"But no one ever mistook you for Nijinski."

"No." He smiled ruefully. "The only thing they ever mistook was my name."

"Your name?" Genevieve asked.

"Yes. The thing that drives me crazy is when people mistake my name. You wouldn't believe how many people think 'Van' is my middle name. So they think my last name is 'Nice.'" He looked morosely at the pavement. "The others in my Ph.D. program called me 'Dr. Nice.'"

"Dr. Nice," said Genevieve. She touched his arm. "I think that's cute."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Aren't you nice, doctor?"

"Oh, I suppose so. That's for other people to determine, not me."

"I'm conducting my investigation at this very minute."

"I take it, Owen, that your doctorate isn't in ballet," August said.

"No. Mother gave up on ballet after I dropped the teacher. Compound fracture." He shook his head. "I'm a paleontologist. I've just spent two years in the Cretaceous."

"So, is that dog you're traveling with Camarasauridae, diplodocidae or titanosauridae?" Genevieve asked.

"Apatosa--you know sauropod taxonomy!"

"Only a little." The Marilyn, ahead of them, turned to give Gen a withering gaze.

"A dinosaur?" August asked. "This must be a rare specimen, eh?"

"Unique. Wilma's a new species: Apatasaurus megacephalos. She's the smartest sauropod ever discovered."

The dark girl who'd asked Owen for a light spat in the street.

"Isn't it dangerous, dealing with those huge animals?"

"Wilma's just a baby. She won't be able to crush you to death for months yet."

"Better watch out for thieves, son," August said.

Owen looked surprised. "Thieves? What could they possibly do with a biological specimen?"

"There are a lot of exotiphagists around. Who knows what some eccentric might pay for a dinosaur steak?"

"Oh, Father," Genevieve said, "don't be melodramatic. Who's taking care of Wilma while you're here, Owen?"

"She's resting in my rooms. Time travel doesn't agree with her. I gave her a sedative."

She pointed out another puddle to keep Owen from stepping in it. "So, Dr. Nice, didn't you miss human companionship back in the Cretaceous?"

"Not really. Dinosaurs are my life."

"Well, you may not be worried about this specimen," August said, "but we're going to take care that you get back safe and sound."

The tour guide came back. "Please keep your conversation to a minimum, or speak in the vernacular. We're almost there."

They emerged from the street into the Forum, crossed the tiled agora past the temple of Castor and Pollux. Above them on the Capitoline Hill the temple of Jupiter shone dramatically in the sunlight, against dispersing gray clouds. The Senate was meeting in Pompey's Theater instead of its regular building. The tour guide, having been through this dozens of times before, was able to sneak them in while avoiding anyone who might notice. From behind an arras embroidered with the suckling of Romulus and Remus by the wolf, they watched Cassius, Brutus and Casca plunge daggers into the stunned Caesar, who fell at the foot of Pompey's statue. He muttered something to Brutus in Greek, and died. There was not as much blood as Genevieve had envisioned. As with so much of the real history she had witnessed, it was over too fast, and nowhere near as striking as the later dramatizations. A good performance of Julius Caesar would blow it off the stage. Brutus and Cassius shouted for attention. About half the senators fled, others stayed to hear the conspirators justify their actions. Brutus made a short speech calling for a return to the Republic that his illustrious ancestor had helped found almost five hundred years before. Over the bleeding corpse of the man who had once stood as the Republic's defender, it was more than a little ironic. Before he finished the guide had pulled the tourists aside. "We need to leave now. Soldiers will be here soon. We don't want to have to explain our presence."

The news had preceded them to the streets, and as they headed back to the villa they found the crowds were electrified and fearful. Gen saw her chance. She slowed until they were bringing up the rear of the tour group. They entered a crowded square. When a soldier on horseback galloped by, a troop of legionaries double-timing behind him, Gen stumbled. Owen caught her and pulled her away, but by the time she gathered herself she had managed to separate them from the group.

A gust of rain slanted down between the tall apartment buildings. Though she pulled her cloak over her head, Gen made sure she got good and wet before they ducked under an awning. When she shivered Owen took off his own cloak and threw it around her shoulders. He started rubbing her arms, blushed furiously and stopped.

"Do you know the way back?" Gen asked.

"I'm not sure."

She leaned against him.

"That market looks familiar," he said, pointing.

As the news of the assassination spread the city was in turmoil. Gen and Owen ducked into the covered market to hide out until the crush in the streets dissipated. They walked down the market nave, past vendors gone suddenly quiet. Flies hovered over displays of cheese and vegetables. In the doorway of a wine shop sat a weeping barmaid, who no doubt served other appetites in the back rooms. Everywhere shocked citizens whispered in twos and threes. At a barber's a three shabby men discussed the implications of the assassination: who was responsible, who would take power, would the Republic be restored. The barber set aside the hot iron with which he was curling the fringe of a balding man, and said darkly, "Let those conspirators only set foot in my shop, and I'll give them a shave they'll not forget."

"Who's to say you haven't shaved the lot of them already?"

"They might well have learned their bloodletting from lead-handed Lucius!" another said.

No one laughed.

This is fascinating, isn't it?" Gen asked.

Owen was staring at her shoulders and neck. "Yes, I haven't seen . . . anything like it . . . for some time."

"We've just witnessed one of the signal events of history, Owen."

"I'm sorry. It's just that I've been in the Cretaceous . . . for two years"

"There aren't any girls in the Cretaceous?"

"Most are sauropods."

This was hardly work at all. Owen Vannice was like a little boy, highly intelligent, repressed, eager to please, proper and decent. The quintessential mark.

The barber looked up at them standing by his doorway. "Who's that lanky oaf ?" He pointed at Owen. "I haven't seen you before. Why are you lurking around here?"

Owen fumbled with the language. "Pardon me--"

Gen took him by the arm. They retreated to the end of the market. "Owen," she said. "At least try to look like you belong here. You stand out like a telephone pole."

"But how would I know how a Roman's supposed to act?"

"Pretend. Act like you know what you're doing even when you don't. Make it up. Haven't you ever pretended before?"

"I don't like to lie. We should get back to the villa. They must be worried about us."

"What's the matter, Dr. Nice? Afraid to be seen with me?" And just because he was so sober, she ran off through the crowd, down the length of the market, dodging through the gossiping Romans, and out the other side.

Behind her she heard Owen's cry for her to stop. She felt exhilarated. She danced down the steps, through a plaza where worried citizens, huddled in doorways, discussed the uncertain future. Down a narrow side street reeking of rotting food and excrement. In the next twisting side street she saw the entrance of some public building where women came and went--a bath.

Hesitating only a moment, she strode inside. She paid a quadrans and proceeded to the dressing rooms, where she left her pala, stola, loincloth and sandals. In the tepidarium she sat with a dozen matrons and young women. A red-haired woman came in an announced the news, and several of the others immediately left. An old lady, face painted into a mask of white lead above her sagging breasts, watched Gen. Gen smiled back. From the tepidarium she moved on to the caldarium. The floor, inlaid with an image of the goddess Diana dispensing laurels, was heated from the chambers beneath its pavement. In the center of the room a huge bronze cauldron, heated by the subterranean furnace, billowed clouds of steam. The steam escaped through a hole in the rotunda that admitted the watery sunlight that was the dim room's only illumination.

Gen sat on a limestone bench and sweated. It felt good. After fifteen or twenty minutes she passed back through the tepidarium to the pool on its other side, open to the afternoon sky. She lowered herself into the chilly water.

Nothing, the thought, could feel more invigorating. She felt clean for the first time in weeks.

She wondered what Owen was doing. Did he wander the streets looking for her? Had he returned to the villa in a panic to alert the tour guides? She supposed this was the end of the scam, but what the hell. They didn't need the money that badly. But August would worry whether this erratic behavior meant Gen was going sour as a grifter. As she floated beneath the pre-Christian sky Gen wondered if that was right. She couldn't tell why she'd run from Owen Vannice, except for his goofy earnestness. He had no business being so dumb. But it was good to enjoy the bath.

After a while she returned to the dressing rooms, put on her clothes. She would have to hurry back. Even on ordinary nights the streets were prey to bands of young men who beat up passersby, manhandled women, and smashed shops; in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination who knew what might happen? Just outside the entrance she found a number of citizens crowded around someone in the street, arguing. The man in the middle was Owen. He looked damp and miserable. As she drew closer, she heard him mutter in English, "I'm not going to leave until I make sure she's all right, so you might as well accommodate yourself to the prospect."

"He's mad," one of the Romans said. "He's talking to himself."

"What language is that?" said a small man with a cap of curly black hair. "He must be a barbarian."

"I'll warrant he's involved in this assassination," said a self-important man, some cousin of an oligarch with a purple hem to his robe.

Gen pushed her way into their midst. "Why are you bothering my slave?" she asked in Latin.

The man with the purple hem turned to her. "He was sitting outside the baths talking to himself. We thought he might be a madman."

"He's my manservant, waiting for me to come out. And this is none of your business."

"He talks to himself," said the little man.

"He's a Teuton--you know how they are." She turned to Owen, who looked confused, and grabbed his arm. "Hrothgar! Let us go!"

She tugged him down the street. While the Romans stood gawking, Gen hurried them around the corner.

"Your language mod must be more thorough than mine," Owen said. "What did you say to them?"

"You're my slave, Vannice. What were you doing out there?"

"I was worried about you," he said. "You may be wealthy, Genevieve, but wealth won't keep you out of trouble in a place like this."

Genevieve stifled her laughter. "I'll keep that in mind." Owen looked forlorn. "I'm sorry I ran away, Owen. I was just teasing."

He flashed a brief, dark smile, so grateful she wanted to run away again. "There's going to be a dance at the hotel tomorrow night," he said. "Will you go with me?"

FOUR: SIMON
AT WORK

As Simon ascended the hill into west Jerusalem, past the Hasmonean toward Herod's Palace, he was startled by a noise from behind him. He stumbled to the side of the street in time to avoid the sport limousine that shot past, jouncing over the cobbles. The windows were opaque, but the seal of Herod Antipas was painted on the door. Though the narrow steep streets of Jerusalem were unsuited to wheeled vehicles, that didn't stop Herod from going everywhere in the abomination the invaders had given him. He was even having a road built from the time travelers' compound to the new palace they had built for him.

Jerusalem's upper market bustled. Those who had not already bought lambs for sacrifice or food for the sabbath meal were busy making last-minute purchases. The smell of roast lamb and fried eggplant wafted from the booths of vendors. A couple of disreputable looking men stood in the shade of a wooden awning, whispering political conversations under the cover of whining liturgical music from a hammerbox. A troop of Roman mercenaries wearing leather skirts, plumed helmets and carrying assault rifles hustled down the street toward the Antonia. A colorful bird sat forlornly in an animal dealer's wooden cage, eyed by a cat from the alley.

A Pharisee wearing phylacteries wrapped around his arm and forehead stopped in the street, praying aloud, his voice challenging the roar of the air conditioning compressor that disfigured the wall of the shop next door. He draped his robes carefully, bowed so deeply that every vertebra in his back might be separated. Simon stopped, bowed his own head, as did some of the workers in the street and people in the shops. Not as many paid respect to the holy man's ritual as might have even a year before. Simon himself did not respect the Pharisaic ritual as much as he once had: on the one hand, his master had questioned the sincerity of those who prayed ostentatiously in the street, on the other, such displays of piety did little to move Israel toward freedom. Behind him, below the Hasmonean colonnade, he heard a couple of kids continuing to hawk bootlegged vids.

It was ten minutes before the Pharisee rose and moved on. Simon brushed off his tunic, adjusted his girdle and headed for the hotel. He passed the grand entrance between the Hippicus and Mariamme Towers and entered through the loading docks at the south end of the enclosure around Herod's Palace. At the security booth guarding the dock he stopped and showed his credentials. On the platform a purchaser in the uncouth clothes the future people fancied haggled with a dealer in exotic animals who held two surly camels by a short halter. The guard, a thick, humorous man named Hans Bauer, smirked. “Late again, Simon. Callahan will be pleased.”

Simon entered the hotel. The staff entrance was on the basement level. The guts of Herod’s palace had been ripped out and replaced by an extensive substructure containing a warehouse for trade goods to be shipped back and forth in time, a large industrial time travel stage, the hotel laundry, a kennel for livestock and trade animals, kitchens, security offices and the power plant. Simon headed through the main corridor to the transshipment warehouse, entered and hurried down the aisle between stacks of loot waiting to be shipped forward in time--amphorae of the finest Greek wine, crates of scrolls from the Alexandrian library, perfumed oils in alabaster jars from the East, bas-reliefs from Babylon, figs from Galilee, statuary from Egypt. And other heaps of goods meant for the locals. Weapons for the Roman collaborators. Televisions. Chocolate bars. Crates of gin. Simon thought about the destruction represented by those rows of pallets. His world was being drugged like a whore, bled like a sacrificial lamb.

He reached the glassed in office in the corner of the warehouse. Two men sat there, amid bills of lading, drinking coffee and munching dried apricots. On the window wall music pix played.

"You're late," said Patrick Callahan, the operations manager. "Haven't you learned to read a clock yet?"

Simon bowed his head. "I am sorry," he said.

"Sorry is the word for you, that's right. I can't get a decent shift's work out of any of you towelheads."

"Cut him some slack, Pat. The guy's out of his depth."

"Simon? No, Simon here's deep. Used to be an apostle, didn't you boy?"

"I believe you are mistaken, sir. Are we shipping the rest of that wine tonight?"

"Listen to this guy, Arnie. Let me decide what gets shipped or not shipped."

"Certainly, sir."

"The transit stage is out of order," Arnie offered.

Simon tried not to show any reaction. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. An arrival came in with sideways em-vee. An order of magnitude larger and he'd have been pulped against the wall."

"He doesn't know momentum from shinola, Arnie," Callahan said. "Do you, Simon?"

Callahan's mood seemed to improve the lower Simon's got. "No, sir."

"Well, anyway, our bad luck's your good fortune. No heavy lifting tonight. It's down to the kennel for you, Simon old chap. They need you to clean it up. I know you people haven't invented the mop yet, but we've spent a lot of money training you. You remember how to use it, don't you?"

Simon nodded.

"Then get out of those filthy rags and get to work." Callahan turned his back on him.

Simon headed to the historicals' lockers, segregated from the lockers kept for staff from the future. He wondered whether the out-of-commission transit stage was a coincidence or part of the plan. He had heard nothing. Should he try to contact Jephthah? But if he left the hotel in the middle of his shift at the very least he would lose his job, and at worst he'd arouse suspicions.

On the shelf of his locker he found a note. Written in bad Hebrew, it told him to look into the closet outside the laundry. He changed from his tunic, robe and sandals into the dark blue coveralls the invaders insisted on, then headed down to the kennel. The dogs started barking as soon as he showed up. A devout Jew could not even own the representation of a beast, but these future people had an obsession with animals; apparently it was a considerable coup to own a pet from an earlier era.

From the closet he got out the wheeled bucket, the mop, the cleaner. He filled the bucket from the hose at the sink, and squirted in some cleaner. The pungent ammonia scoured his nose. He rolled the bucket down to the aisle of cages. Some of the dogs stood on their hind legs, their front paws against the front of their cages, noses against the glass. Others just lay curled up, eyeing him miserably. He dunked the mop in the bucket, squeezed it out in the wringer, and began to work his way down the aisle, sweeping side to side, not hurrying, his mind on his plans for the night.

At first Simon's passivity in the face of the futurians' insults had been an act, a veil over his fury. Ten years had complicated that. He looked at the future dwellers with a combination of awe and resentment, and could not accord their ordinariness--they seemed to be people just like him--with their power. Just when he had gained enough knowledge to have contempt for them, they would do something that revealed anew how alien they were. He could not imagine the world they lived in. A world without god, apparently, although they were obsessed with Yeshu and had stolen him away.

A decade before, when Simon and Alma had first come to Jerusalem from Galilee, he had been mocked as a rustic who did not pronounce his alephs at the front of words. The city was in a queer state of shock. The Sadducees, living fat off the money they stole from the tithes meant for the support of the Temple, strolled through the streets with bland assurance. The Pharisees were more interested in following the Law than expelling these strangers from the future.

The troops of the time travelers had taken the Roman garrison in Jerusalem in a single hour, had defeated the Roman legion from Caesarea in an afternoon. They had had to do remarkably little fighting. They brought Herod Antipas back from Galilee to nominally rule Judaea. The Romans and their Syrian troops now collaborated, and the Roman Prefect and the Legate were mere puppets. Though Simon took some satisfaction in seeing the Romans reduced to servility to the invaders, it was cold comfort. Jews were one step farther removed from ruling their own nation.

So he mopped the kennel in a basement room of what had once been the great Herod's palace. As a boy he had envisioned this place with awe. But the time travelers had only to wave some of their toys at Herod for him to abandon it, like a puppy begging scraps beneath a table. The sight of Herod wearing his spandex jacket and sunglasses as he walked through the upper market with one of his whores turned Simon's stomach. It was easy to have contempt for Herod. But what if you felt yourself slipping away?

Simon put the mop in the bucket, wrung it out and began swabbing down the floor along the second row of cages. At six pm--the invaders had given him a wristwatch, and he could indeed read it--he left his mopping. He took the canvas cart of laundry, filled it with old towels, and pushed it down the corridor. The hallway was empty. He wheeled past the laundry to a closet, took his keys and unlocked it. Inside were two cases marked "Transtemporal Music Imports."

Quickly, he loaded the cases into the cart and covered them with dirty towels. He then ran the cart over to Trash and transferred the cases into plastic bags of refuse that were bound for the gehenna landfill. He made an aleph on the bags with masking tape and wheeled the cart back to the laundry. One of the other custodial staff, Jacob, was unloading sheets from an industrial dryer.

"Shalom, Simon. How are you?" Jacob asked.

"I am fine." Simon began unloading the dirty towels.

"I did not near you singing tonight. Usually you sing while you work."

"I have been in the kennel. The dogs do all the singing there."

Jacob touched the music bead in his ear. "I have a new song for your son. One of the tourists gave it to me. It's called 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore.'" He pronounced the English with a thick accent. Simon had worked hard on eliminating his own.

They shared an interest in the futurians' music. It was one of the few changes Simon could accept, one of the still fewer he and his son Samuel could share. But his own liking for the music troubled him. How could such infidels create such heartfelt music? Perhaps Simon's love for it was a sign that he was being corrupted.

"I don't want to listen to secular music," Simon said. "I have work."

Simon went back to the kennel and finished cleaning. At the end of his shift he washed up, hung his uniform in the locker room and put on his tunic, robe and sandals. He paused to feel the fabric of the uniform. He ran his thumb over the close woven cloth. The weave was as fine as that of the clothes of Herod himself, but inhumanly regular. They said that this cloth was made by a machine. The metal of the uniform's belt shone like silver, but was much harder.

He drew his hand back, felt the cloth of his own robe. His father, a weaver, had made it for him. It brought back memories of the shop in Capernaum, his father bent over his loom. The boys in town had mocked Simon's father behind his back. To be a weaver, associating with women, was the lowest of professions. Simon had told himself that those who scorned his father could not live without his skill. But now these men from out of time, with bolts of cloth made by machines, had driven weavers out of business. He closed his locker, and left.

At the security booth he was searched, then left through the staff exit. He entered the streets of west Jerusalem. All was quiet.

He hurried from the time traveler's quarter, under the harsh sodium lights, and down the hill into the dark second quarter of the city, where the only illumination came from occasional oil lamps in hanging baskets. Few Jews were abroad so late. He met his friends in a large house in the northeast, beneath the wall near the Damascus Gate. The house belonged to Asher of Carmel, a merchant who supported their cause. The others greeted him with excitement, and they went up to the roof and knelt in prayer.

"Oh God of Israel, grant that we may establish again your holy kingdom on earth," Jephthah chanted. Jephthah's dark beard shone with oil, his voice cracked with harsh emotion. He was young, handsome, a man of action. In the background, Simon listened to the rustling of hot desert winds in the palms of the courtyard.

When they sat back, Simon told them about the malfunction of the time travel stage. Was this part of the plan? Jephthah and the others didn't know. Simon was to meet with Serge Halam the following afternoon, and undoubtedly the agent from the future would know something about it. Jephthah ordered Simon to pay close attention to the goings on inside the hotel to see if he could pick up any useful information.

"Make sure you give no sign of what is to happen," Jephthah said.

"What makes you think that I would do so?"

"Ask your son, who wears their clothes and sings their music."

Simon bit back his urge to reply. Where had Jephthah been ten years before, when Simon had been the most zealous of them all?

They retreated to a room below, where Asher provided wine and bread. The others, like men hoeing over the same field for the one hundredth time, discussed their situation. Simon had once contributed to these obsessive complaints, these fervent oaths; now he sat silent, wondering whether he deserved Jephthah's suspicion.

"Perhaps once we begin, the Sadducees will turn our way," said Joset.

"As long as they get their penicillin, microwaves and frozen dinners, the Sadducees are lap dogs," Asher said. "The Essenes--"

"--are of no use to us," Jephthah said. The Zealots had once pinned considerable hope on the assistance of the Essenes. Yeshu's brother James was one of these deeply religious mystics--but after the departure of Yeshu the Essenes advocated complete withdrawal from contact with the futurians. They had retreated to the dry hills south of the city. That left only the Zealots, and those Pharisees they could goad into joining them, to try to sway the confused citizens into revolt.

Jephthah played with the blade of his curved dagger, speaking as much to it as to his fellows. "These dogs do not understand the power of faith. Their silk stockings and perfumed soap are not proof against faith."