Touchstone (Meridian Series) (34 page)

       “Yes!”
said Nordhausen. “It was written on the stone… here, let me remember…
‘Through the ages now he comes to a mystery:
one death gives birth, a great wind upon the face of the sea, in a place
forever hidden where the lions roar: ‘mine is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.’
A Great wind upon the face of the sea: that
must be the tsunami sequence generated by Palma!“

       “A
place forever hidden where the lions roar,” said Paul. “That has to be a
reference to the Sphinx—or both of them.”

       “Mine
is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.” Nordhausen continued. “An obvious reference
to the past, where they’ve hidden a record of all future events.  But what does
the first part mean?” He looked about, hoping to find the answer with one of
the others.

       “We
believe it refers to Mr. Kelly,” said LeGrand matter of factly.

Kelly looked at him, confused? “Me?”

“I’m afraid so,” said LeGrand. “It was your
death that prevented the others from acting to reverse Palma. ‘One death gives
birth—to the whole of their dastardly plan, and the destruction of the entire
Eastern Seaboard of this continent. That was what we sent Mr. Graves to undo—to
prevent that one death—your death.”

       He
reached up to wipe the sheen of sweat from his brow. “But now they’ve found
another lever,” he said. “It changes everything again. This last twist is fatal
to our cause—unless we act here and now. We will be  reduced to a bare handful
of dissidents in our time, hiding out, constantly on the run, hounded into
caves and hidden sanctuaries. Storm the site with an assault team? Try showing
your white unshaven face in Old Cairo today, in the district known as
Maadi
,
if you get the significance of that name, and see how you fare! Do you honestly
think we could get to the place if this transformation takes effect? The Assassins
have it completely encircled. The Fedayeen commandos guard it night and day. Their
secret police are everywhere—or at least they will be if we don’t act to
prevent them. From this moment forward they will begin to use the advantage
they have gained. They’ll post a watch on the site, send agents all throughout
the continuum to guard it.”

       “Then
won’t it be guarded now?” said Robert. “I mean, on this mission you have
planned to the second Sphinx?”

       “Perhaps,”
LeGrand admitted, “but we’re targeting them just as they establish the place—a
secret chamber beneath the Sphinx where their scribe will carve out the key Nexus
Points in the whole of human history. That’s what they were using as a
guideline. That’s why we could never figure out how they could still resist us
when we destroyed the last of their Arch complexes in our time. They’re damn
conniving—cunning beyond our ken. They  used these Oklo reactions to build
hidden transfer gates—they call them wells. We’ve only found the one thanks to
you, at Wadi Rumm, but there have to be others, and we’ve no time to look for
them now.”

       “And
what if we destroy this hidden chamber? That’s what you want us to do,
correct?” Paul wanted to get a glimpse of the outcome should they decide to
undertake the mission.

       “If
you can,” said LeGrand. “It’s underground, and we’ve enough information to
formulate a possible plan of attack. We found it in their own literature… the
hidden stream that carries the walkers to the chamber of Time. The whole place
is underground, you see, but it’s very close to the
Nile
.
That area has been a problem in
Cairo
for generations. The water is leeching
through the limestone and migrating under the city. We did research—no time to
go into it all, but they’re using a series of locks on the river—the
underground stream. All it will take is a little nudge, just as it should. The
Pushpoint is one of the levers that opens the locks. We’re certain of it.”

       “And
these locks existed that long ago?” Paul had an incredulous look on his face.

       “Only
one,” LeGrand confirmed. “The others were built over the long generation as the
river intruded on the location of their site. That’s why we’re sure of the
Pushpoint.
There’s only one lock at this target date
.”

       Silence
enfolded the room, broken only by the hum of the lab consoles.

       “Very
well,” said Paul, looking at Maeve. “The others have just returned. I’ll go.”

       LeGrand
smiled warmly. “Very noble. It is just what we would expect of you,” he said.
“But I’m afraid that your preparation might take more time than we have.” He
eyed the clock again.

       “But
there’s already a quantum signature for me in our database here.” Paul repeated
the logic that had led him to volunteer.  “And Robert and Maeve have only just
returned. They’ll need time to recover.”

       “All
true,” said LeGrand, “but first we would have to re-calibrate your signature,
and then merge the data with the mission parameters we have programmed on the
disk. There would be changes and, as Mister Ramer would be quick to point out,
that would take computer time—more than we can spare.”

       Kelly
looked at him, a realization dawning in his eyes. “Then it’s me you want,” he
said matter of factly. “You already have my signature encoded on the DVD, don’t
you.”

       LeGrand
nodded, his breath abated, waiting as he watched the others for any sign of
protest. Paul could see that his hand was shaking a bit as he fingered the hem
of his gray cloak.

       “Let’s
get started then,” said Kelly. “You’ll have to resample my signature when I’m
exposed to the particle stream, but if I know my methods and procedures like I
think I’m going to, you’ll have an algorithm already encoded on the DVD to
handle the data merge.”

       “Precisely,”
said LeGrand, greatly relieved.

       Kelly
was already edging his swivel chair up to the control console, all business.
Maeve had a pleading expression on her face, close to tears, but she said
nothing. There was a tense silence in the room. Kelly was opening the jewel
case to remove the DVD while he toggled system switches.

       “I’ll
clear the necessary RAM,” he said. “Paul, would you check on the particle
infusion chamber? I’m worried about the quantum fuel situation. Robert, you can
be useful if you would get with Mister LeGrand here and figure out what I’m
supposed to do. I’ll be half an hour here setting this thing up, and that won’t
leave me much time…”

       He
looked at Maeve, and saw the tear streaking her cheek, his own eyes glassy as
he swallowed hard. “And would you come down to the Arch with me, love?” His
voice broke as he spoke those last words.

       Robert
leaned in to Paul. “Will it really be that dangerous?”

       Paul
just looked at him. Then he took him by the arm, walking him away from the lab
console. “It’s like this,” he said softly. “If he’s fails the mission, we’re
all exposed to Paradox, and who knows what will happen when the Nexus
dissipates here in a few hours.”

       “And
if he succeeds?”

       “In
that event it will be Kelly’s fate on the line. The transformation he works
will begin over 12,000 years ago, and ripple forward. It’s very likely that
events will stand as we see them now, and there will be no attack at
Palma
by Ra’id Husan al Din. Understand?
He’ll
be the one exposed to Paradox
again, just as he was after that first mission.”

       “But
we’ll still have the DVD,” said Robert.  “And we published the whole thing to
the web. If that survives, what’s the problem?”

       “The
DVD has location data for Kelly to be pulled from the lab on May 28
^th
,
2010, at precisely
4:10 A.M.
  It’s September now, and he’ll be somewhere
east of the Nile, in the year 10500 B.C.”

       Robert’s
eyes suddenly registered the dilemma. “Then the Order will just have to
intervene again—like they did the last time. Don’t they have his coordinates on
that DVD? I’ll speak to LeGrand!”

       “Quiet
down,” said Paul. He took a deep breath and looked his friend square in the
face. “They would have to know exactly where he is—
exactly
—in both space
and time, if they are to intervene again.”

       “No
problem,” Robert reached for one last rope, even though he could feel himself
sinking into the realization of what Paul was driving at. “We’ll pull him back
here and they can just scoop him from the Arch when he returns. That’s a
location that we can cement in the history from this moment forward. I’ll
resolve here and now to publish the exact coordinates, just like we did the
DVD. As for the time, they will know that from our own system chronometers when
he re-materializes here.”

       Paul
sighed, a look on his face that said he wished it all could be so. “He can’t
re-materialize here,” he said, his eyes watering over. “We haven’t the quantum
fuel to get him there and back again. Even the outbound shift is going to be
cutting it very thin. Besides, this is a Nexus Point—a
conditional
Nexus, Robert. It is temporary. Time is waiting for the outcome. If he
succeeds, and
Palma
never happens, then we never had a reason
to run this mission. So the Nexus will dissipate rather quickly.“

       “But
we came back from the Hejaz on the first mission,” Robert protested.

“That was the first mission,” said Paul. “The
initial breach of time was a grand event, a first cause, if you will. It was
therefore not subject to the full weight of Paradox, and we were able to return
because our place in the continuum was not altered. But that was not so for
Kelly. If Palma doesn’t happen, then
Graves
never came back to save him, and Kelly is… gone…
Nothing that fails to survive the Paradox sweep after
Palma
will survive in this Nexus when it dissipates. The Meridian we were in when we
first returned from the Palma mission will be restored—only this time they
won’t have Kelly tucked away safely in the future for us… And this time, when
we stand at that memorial site to remember what he did for us, they’ll be no
one to steal up behind us and dance on his own grave.”

      
27

“So
we’re back to this,”
said
Robert, with a fallen expression. “It’s Kelly again, at the edge of
annihilation, and all because of my meddling.”

       “Why
do you think that way?” Paul tried to console him, but Robert just shook his
head.

       “I
had to have my precious manuscript…had to see Old London to breathe in the milieu
of Sherlock Holmes. Now look at it. The moment I stepped into the grand gallery
of the
British
Museum
and saw… or rather felt the obvious vacancy
there, I knew something was amiss. The Rosetta stone was gone, and I knew in my
gut that I had something to do with it. It was me, Paul; my damnable
fascination with history, and books, and opera, and all the rest. I sat there
in the bar and toasted with Oscar Wilde! I consorted with Primes, as Maeve
would have it, and now look at this affair.”

       “Don’t
be silly, Robert. We’ve already determined that your missions have caused no
significant change in the Meridian. You merely happened upon this Time war,
that’s all. It was mere synchronicity. The real culprits are the terrorists—on
either side—who keep meddling with the history.”

       “I
suppose,” said Robert, needing some consolation now. “But what makes us any
different, Paul? We’re the ones meddling now, and we’re paying a hell of a
price for it—we’re giving them Kelly, for God’s sake, or humanity’s sake—and
not even that. We’re taking sides here. Anything we do to save the things we
love will wreak havoc on another culture. It’s maddening!”

       Paul
was silent, the gravity of his friend’s words finally reaching him on an
emotional level. “Perhaps Maeve was right all along,” he said softly. “Perhaps
we should have never started this thing, but it seems that this mission will
finish it—one way or another. Yes, we are taking sides, I suppose. But what
else can we do? We’re being asked to choose now—between the promises made by
two possible futures. We have an eye on one, as it springs from our own culture,
our own understanding. We haven’t seen the other, a world ruled by fundamental
Islam, but we’ve seen enough of it to hazard a guess as to what that would be
like. And we have LeGrand’s word as well. In the end, this is Kelly’s choice.
If he wants to do this, then how can we stand in his way? In spite of all of
that, there is still some truth to what you say. This has to stop. We cannot
allow any future meddling in the Meridian again. After this, I’m shutting the
whole thing down.”

~

       Kelly
was half an hour getting ready. The sudden realization that he was about to
embark on a mission had primed his system with the adrenaline of anxiety. He
was burning it off, fidgeting with the system console to be certain all the equipment
was in order.  He cleared as much RAM as he could find, and keyed in some
backup subroutines.