Chronica (13 page)

But as Heron proceeded up to the room with the Chairs, he thought he caught sight of that fool Cyril Charles, on the second library floor, in the periphery of his vision. Charles might have noticed Heron, but Heron couldn't be sure, and he didn't have the wherewithal to deal with this now.

[New York City, January, 1899 AD]

The British butler was of course at the door, as he had been when Heron had arrived in January. "Important business bids me to leave," Heron said to the Millennium doorman.

"Have a good day, Mr. Morgan," the doorman replied.

Heron walked down Fifth Avenue to the seafood restaurant, where Edison was still seated.

"You beat the plate of shrimp," Edison said to Heron with a harsh laugh.

"As I said I would," Heron said.

"What have you to tell me?" Edison asked. "What can you tell me that I won't know until sometime in the future?"

"You will rescue a dog in a big snowstorm in New Jersey in February," Heron replied.

"That is very specific," Edison replied.

Heron nodded. "That should make this proof more convincing."

"But how do I know you are not now just giving me the idea of rescuing a dog in the snow, which I will do next month only because we are having this conversation?" Edison asked.

"Because if were that so – that I don't know the future and I am just introducing this idea to you now – there is surely no way that I could make a dog materialize for you in a blizzard," Heron replied. "Further, the information your future self just gave me is that the dog escaped from you before you had a chance to bring it to a shelter. When the storm comes and you have the dog in your arms, try to hold on to it, and see what happens. It will no doubt escape, however hard you try to not let that happen." Heron also knew he was changing history with this conversation, and the Edison he had talked to the month after next had had no recollection of this conversation, which had not yet happened in his reality.

"Tell me more about the time travel," Edison quietly said, very seriously, "and what you want me to do. I am inclined to give you the presumption, for now, that you have indeed just time traveled – it certainly tickles my fancy, as they say. Tell me what you want me to do. And if your prediction about the dog in the snowstorm comes true in February, I may endeavor to help you."

Heron now had to be exceedingly careful. He did not want Edison to attempt to create a time traveling Chair. There was insufficient collateral technology in this age for Edison or anyone to do that now, in 1899 or even 1999, anyway. But if Edison made the attempt, and received publicity about that – which he would, given his stature, and lots of it – that could get other inventors interested. Who wouldn't want to invent a time machine? And that could result in a discovery of the Chairs. "There is a book I wrote," Heron said.

"Yes?"

"It was stolen from me," Heron said. "I need your help in reacquiring it." The
Chronica
, Heron hoped, was still in the ancient Greek in which Heron had written it as a vain young man, nearly two millennia ago. Edison was an autodidact – famously self-educated, with some courses at Cooper Union, and Heron was all but certain none of them included reading of ancient Greek. So if Edison could get the
Chronica
, and Heron could take it from Edison before the boorish genius could bring it to a translator, Heron would get what he needed.

"Who stole it from you?" Edison asked.

"That is not relevant," Heron replied. "What matters now is who has it."

The waiter appeared with Edison's plate of shrimp.

"Anything else?" the waiter inquired.

Edison brushed him away, dug into the shrimp, and belched his appreciation. "And who would that be?"

"William Henry Appleton," Heron replied.

"The publisher?" Edison asked.

"Yes."

"I don't know him," Edison said. "I did build the first hydroelectric plant in Appleton, Wisconsin – named, I believe, after a Samuel Appleton. Any relation?"

"I don't know," Heron replied. "Samuel's family came from New Hampshire, as did William's. They could be distant cousins – I haven't investigated it further."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Edison grunted and laughed through a mouth of shrimp.

"There was a house built in Appleton, Wisconsin called the White Heron," Heron said. "I'm sure that is total coincidence." Heron didn't believe in coincidence, but he didn't want to make this too convoluted for Edison.

"I'm sure it is," Edison said, and laughed again. "How do you suggest I approach William Appleton? I'm not exactly known as a man of letters."

"Tell him you're thinking of writing an autobiography," Heron said. "And you can also mention your work in Appleton, Wisconsin – that could attract William's interest as well." Heron again expected it could be helpful to stroke Edison's ego, as the quickly emerging psychologist, Sigmund Freud, might say. In fact, one of the reasons Heron had thought to contact Edison for this task was the inventor's Appleton, Wisconsin connection.

***

The two passed by another pair of men standing about half a block from the restaurant, dressed in black, with full facial hair, conversing in a language Heron did not recognize.

"That's Yiddish," Edison said, "a mongrel tongue of a mongrel people, Jews. You know of them?"

"One of my best students was a Jew," Heron said, thinking of Jonah. "He was highly intelligent, and he was very loyal, until—"

"He knifed you in the back?" Edison broke in. "That's the way it is with those people, loyal only to themselves and their money."

Heron chose not to contest the point, but noted that this celebrated inventor was not only a boor but a bigot. "Please attend to the Appleton matter as soon as you can, timing is everything in this business we are in."

Edison bristled at being directed so explicitly what to do, and about being in any kind of business with a man as bizarre as Heron. "And if I'm too late with Appleton? If he no longer has your book?"

"Then I might have to go further back in time and have this same conversation with you, all over again for me, first time for you," Heron said.

"And I wouldn't be remembering it now, because?" Edison asked.

"Because even though it would be happening to you earlier than now, it would not have happened to you yet, if that makes any sense," Heron replied.

"It gives me more of a headache than anything else," Edison said.

***

The two parted company on Fifth Avenue. "I'm taking the ferry to New Jersey -- I have work to do in Menlo Park. I'll see to your Appleton assignment first thing tomorrow, if that's ok with you," Edison said and headed west on 42
^nd
Street, without waiting for Heron's answer.

Heron walked north on Fifth Avenue. He thought again about Porter's failure with Appleton. Enlisting Edison's help was only a part of what Heron intended to do about this.

Heron didn't believe in bad luck – or, if it happened, he believed its occurrence was far less frequent than most people thought. When plans did not proceed as intended, it was usually not because of bad luck but bad planning, which hadn't foreseen that someone might interfere.

Appleton was already ill, Heron was willing to concede, on his way to dying in October. But already too ill to see someone who wanted to make a movie – or whatever it was called in this time and place – about Hypatia, whom Appleton had struggled so hard to protect when she was Sierra Waters? This Don Quixote Victorian tilting so nobly at time was still the better part of a year away from his deathbed. The more Heron thought about it, the more he doubted that Appleton had refused to see Porter because Appleton was too ill.

But if not ill, then why? Had Appleton been warned by someone about what Porter was really after? If that was the case, who had warned Appleton?

Heron had an idea, but he was not completely sure. In any event, this was not something he could do on his own. He had legionaries or their future equivalents in most of the eras he frequented. In 1899 New York City, they would be in the building on Mulberry Street, putting in its final decade as Police Headquarters –before the New York City Police Headquarters, serving the newly unified multi-borough city, opened at 240 Centre Street in 1909.

Heron had walked enough to reach a decision. The Millennium Club was across the street. He walked in. No one was at the door. He walked quickly up the flights of stairs to the Chairs, took one to March 1899, then walked out again onto the street where he boarded a noisy motorized public transport vehicle south. He was tired of the freezing weather, anyway.

[New York City, March, 1899 AD]

Heron's original legionaries were utterly reliable. They had started as literally Roman legionaries, whom Heron had hired away from Rome's employ with the promise of adventure, money, and the chance to really influence history. And there was nothing inflated in those goals -- all were attainable.

Once recruited, the former Roman legionaries were taken to one of Heron's camps, in the late 21
^st
century, where they were trained in the arts of combat with weapons that did not exist in Roman times, as well as given intense practice with knives and swords and weapons they already knew.

These legionaries were eventually situated in many times and places. They had served Heron well in Athens in the time of Socrates and in Alexandria in the time of Hypatia. But these men were not invincible, and, sooner or later, most of them perished in battle. Since there was not an inexhaustible supply of true Roman legionaries, Heron had been obliged to look elsewhere for replacements, and for trustworthy people to post in new positions. With the human population constantly increasing, there naturally were more candidates in the future than the past.

The disadvantage was that they could not be easily deployed in the ancient world or the Middle Ages – not without lengthy training in the relevant culture. And they were not as blindly loyal as the original legionaries, whose punishment for disobeying orders in ancient Rome was usually far more severe than in the military or the police of the United States of America, for example.

But the advantage of recruiting a legionary from the 20
^th
or 21
^st
century is that he or she – there were some women in Heron's employ, though not as many as men – would already be well versed in guns, explosives, and, in the case of the 21
^st
century, laser weaponry. Often they came from law enforcement, but sometimes not. In the United States of America, guns were in abundant supply throughout the populace until the middle of the 21
^st
century.

James Flannery had been with the New York Police Department in the 1990s – still was, in fact, a Lieutenant with "Giuliani's finest," as Flannery put it, when he wasn't working for Heron a century earlier, under cover of working for the 1890s New York police. He was well versed in the firearms of this era, and had no problem fitting in with his Irish ancestors, who were just a few generations closer to the Emerald Isle than was Flannery. Heron had provided him with extensive, forged documentation of a career with the Boston police that Flannery never had, which made it easy to get hired as a Lieutenant in the 1890s New York City police.

Now Flannery waited to meet Heron in front of the police headquarters on Mulberry Street, ruddy cheeks and Phillip Morris cigarettes imported from London in hand and mouth.
 

Heron was punctual to a fault. Flannery didn't have to wait long.

"Let us walk," Heron said to Flannery, as to the two exchanged nods of greeting.

"Lieutenant," several rookie cops paid their respects as Flannery and Heron walked down the street. He gave a curt smile in response.

"I have a task for you," Heron told Flannery, when they were clear of the police headquarters and any cops who might overhear.

Flannery nodded. "Something I can do myself, or should I assemble a team?"

"You should be able to do this yourself," Heron replied. "It is a simple apprehension, questioning, and, if necessary—"

"I understand," Flannery replied. "Do you have a name?"

"Mary Anderson," Heron replied.

"That's a very common name," Flannery said.

"She's an actress," Heron said.

"
That
Mary Anderson? I've seen her picture in the paper – she is one fine looking woman."

"Will that be a problem?" Heron asked. "Do you have qualms about doing your job when beautiful women are involved?"

Flannery laughed. "Of course not. I assume you want to me to question her as soon as possible."

"Always," Heron replied. "She and Edwin Porter attempted to see William Henry Appleton last week – that might be a good place to start."

"Porter the film pioneer?" Flannery had flirted with being a film major when he'd been a student at New York University in the late 1970s.

"Yes," Heron replied, "though they're still referring to it as 'photo-play' back here."

Flannery nodded. "I gather Porter and Anderson were unsuccessful in their attempt to see Appleton? Why was that?"

"Illness," Heron replied, "or so Appleton's man said."

"You think he was lying?" Flannery asked.

Heron made an I-don't-know gesture with his hands. "That's why I'm bringing you into this."

"Ok – you'll hear from me soon," Flannery said. "Anything else I should know?"
 

"No," Heron replied.

"Good," Flannery stopped, turned, and walked away from Heron, back in the direction of police headquarters.

Heron watched Flannery walk away, and thought about the fact that, having hunted someone who was acting as Hypatia in ancient Alexandria, he now was doing the same for an actress who would soon be playing Hypatia in a turn-of-the-century theatrical production in New York City. This seemed strange, even to Heron.

***

Flannery had no love for this Heron, or whoever the hell he was. But he liked Heron's money – with his wife's father in and out of the hospital needing heart-bypass surgery not covered by Flannery's insurance at the end of 20
^th
-century America, a lame-brained son who couldn't hold down a job, and a daughter knocked up when she was 19 and who knew who the father was, Flannery had need of money. And Heron had this time travel timed just right. Flannery could spend as long as he liked or was needed back here in the 1890s, and when he went back to the 1990s, he'd have been missing just the hour or so it took him to get back and forth between One Police Plaza on Park Row and the Millennium Club uptown. He could even snip that hour if it mattered, by setting his return for an hour earlier. Sweet deal.