Timeline (46 page)

“I’m sorry,” Chris said. “I’m really sorry.”

As always, the Professor was unruffled. “I’ve been thinking, Chris,” he said, “about exactly what happened.”

“Uh-huh . . .”

“And I think Oliver had it,” the Professor said. “He locked me in himself. I think he kept the key.”

“Oliver?”

Across the room, Oliver continued to fight, although he was now obviously losing. Arnaut was a better swordsman, and Oliver was drunk and winded. Smiling grimly, Arnaut drove Oliver back with measured blows to the edge of the pit. There Oliver, gasping and sweating, leaned on the railing, too exhausted to continue.

Arnaut gently put the point of his sword to Oliver’s neck. “Mercy,” Oliver said, panting. “I beg mercy.” But it was clear that he did not expect it. Arnaut slowly pressed harder with the sword. Oliver coughed.

“My Lord Arnaut,” Marek said, stepping forward. “We need the key to the cage.”

“Eh? Key? To the cage?”

Gasping, Oliver smiled. “I know where it lies.”

Arnaut jabbed with the sword. “Tell us.”

Oliver shook his head. “Never.”

“If you tell us,” Arnaut said, “I shall spare your life.”

At this, Oliver glanced up sharply. “Certes?”

“I am no treacherous, two-faced Englishman,” Arnaut said. “Give us the key, and I swear as a true gentle of France that I shall not kill you.”

Panting, Oliver stared at Arnaut for several seconds. Finally he stood once again and said, “Very well.” He threw away his sword, reached under his robe, and brought out a heavy iron key. Marek took it.

Oliver turned back to Arnaut. “So: I have done my part. Are you a man of your word?”

“In deed,” Arnaut said, “I shall not kill you . . .” He moved forward swiftly, and clasped Oliver’s knees. “I shall bathe you.”

And he flipped Oliver bodily over the rail, into the pit. Oliver landed with a splash in the black water below; he came up sputtering. Cursing, he swam to the side of the pit and reached toward the rocks to get a handhold. But the rocks that lined the pit were dark with slime. Oliver’s hands slipped off. He could get no purchase. He treaded water, slapping ineffectually at the surface. He looked up at Arnaut, and swore.

Arnaut said, “Do you swim well?”

“Very well, you son of a French pig.”

“Good,” Arnaut said. “Then your bath will take some time.”

And he turned away from the pit. With a nod to Chris and Marek, he said, “I am in your debt. May God grant you mercy all your days.” And then he ran quickly away to rejoin the battle. They heard his footsteps fading.

Marek unlocked the padlock, and the cage door creaked open. The Professor stepped out. He said, “Time?”

“Eleven minutes,” Marek said.

They hurried out of the dungeon. Marek was hobbling, but he managed to move quickly. Behind them, they heard Oliver splashing in the water.

“Arnaut!” Oliver cried, his voice echoing from the dark stone walls. “Arnaut!”

00:09:04

The big screens at the far end of the control room showed the technicians filling the shields with water. The shields were holding up fine. But nobody in the control room was looking at the shields. Instead, they stared silently at the console monitor, watching the undulations of the shimmering, computer-generated field. During the last ten minutes, the peaks had become steadily lower, until now they had nearly vanished; when they appeared at all, they were just occasional ripples in the surface.

Still, they watched.

For a moment, the ripples seemed to grow stronger, more definite. “Is something happening?” Kramer said hopefully.

Gordon shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think that’s just random fluctuations.”

“I thought it might be getting stronger,” Kramer said.

But Stern could see it wasn’t true. Gordon was right; the change was just random. The ripples on the screen remained intermittent, unstable.

“Whatever the problem is back there,” Gordon said, “they still have it.”

00:05:30

Through the flames that leapt up in the central courtyard of La Roque, Kate saw the Professor and the others come out of a far doorway. She ran to join them. They all seemed to be okay. The Professor nodded to her. They were all moving fast.

Kate said to Chris, “Do you have the ceramic?”

“Yes. I have it.” He brought it out of his pocket, turned it to press the button.

“There’s not enough space.”

“There’s space . . . ,” Chris said.

“No. You need two meters on all sides, remember?”

They were surrounded by fire. “You won’t find that anywhere in this courtyard,” Marek said.

“That’s right,” the Professor said. “We have to go to the next courtyard.”

Kate looked ahead. The gatehouse leading to the outer courtyard was forty yards away. But within the gatehouse, the portcullis was up. In fact, it didn’t look as if the gate was guarded at all; the soldiers had all abandoned it, to fight the intruders.

“How much time?”

“Five minutes.”

“Okay,” the Professor said. “Let’s get moving.”

:

They moved at a trot through the fiery courtyard, sidestepping flames and battling soldiers. The Professor and Kate were in the lead. Marek, wincing with the pain in his leg, followed behind. And Chris, worried about Marek, brought up the rear.

Kate reached the first gate. There were no guards at all. They ran through the gate, passing beneath the spikes of the raised portcullis. They entered the middle courtyard. “Oh no,” Kate said.

All of Oliver’s soldiers were garrisoned in the middle court, and there seemed to be hundreds of knights and pages running back and forth, shouting to the men on the battlements, carrying weapons and provisions.

“No room here,” the Professor said. “We’ll have to go through the next gate. Outside the castle.”

“Outside?” Kate said. “We’ll never even get across this courtyard.”

Marek came hobbling up, panting. He took one look at the courtyard and said, “Hoarding.”

“Yes,” the Professor said, nodding. He pointed up at the walls. “The hoarding.”

The hoarding was the enclosed wooden passageway built along the outside rim of the walls. It was a covered fighting platform that enabled soldiers to shoot down at attacking troops. They might be able to move along the hoarding and make their way to the far side of the courtyard, and the far gatehouse.

Marek said, “Where’s Chris?”

They looked back into the central courtyard.

They didn’t see him anywhere.

:

Chris had been following Marek, thinking that perhaps he would have to carry Marek and wondering whether he could, when suddenly he was shoved to one side, slammed bodily against a wall. He heard a voice behind him say in perfect English, “Not you, pal. You stay here.” And he felt the point of a sword jabbed in his back.

He turned to see Robert de Kere standing in front of him, holding his sword. De Kere grabbed him roughly by the collar, shoved him against another wall. Chris saw with alarm that they were just outside the arsenal. With the courtyard in flames, this was not the place to be.

De Kere didn’t seem to care. He smiled. “In fact,” he said, “none of you bastards are going anywhere.”

“Why is that?” Chris said, keeping his eye on the sword.

“Because you have their marker, pal.”

“No I don’t.”

“I can hear your transmissions, remember?” De Kere held out his hand. “Come on, give it to me.”

He grabbed Chris again, and shoved him through the door. Chris stumbled into the arsenal. It was empty now, the soldiers having fled. All around him were stacked bags of gunpowder. The basins where the soldiers had been grinding still lay on the floor.

“Your fucking Professor,” de Kere said, seeing the bowls. “Think you know so much. Give it to me.”

Chris fumbled under his doublet, reaching for his pouch.

De Kere snapped his fingers impatiently. “Come on, come on, hurry up.”

“Just a minute,” Chris said.

“You guys are all the same,” de Kere said. “Just like Doniger. You know what Doniger said? Don’t worry, Rob, we’re making new technology that will fix you up. It’s always new technology that will fix you up. But he didn’t make any new technology. He never intended to. He was just lying, the way he always does. My goddamn face.” He touched the scar that ran down the center. “It hurts all the time. Something about the bones. It aches. And my insides are screwed up. Hurts.”

De Kere held out his palm irritably. “Come on. You keep this up, and I’ll kill you now.”

Chris felt his fingers close around the canister. How far away would the gas work? Not at the distance of a sword. But there was no alternative.

Chris took a deep breath, and sprayed the gas. De Kere coughed, more irritated than surprised, and stepped forward. “You asshole,” he said. “You think that’s a bright idea? Real tricky. Tricky boy.”

He poked at Chris with the sword, jabbing him backward. Chris backed up.

“For that, I’m going to cut you open and let you watch your guts spill out.” And he swung upward, but Chris dodged it easily, and he thought, It’s had some effect. He sprayed again, closer to de Kere’s face, then ducked as the sword swung and struck the floor, knocking over one of the basins.

De Kere wobbled, but he was still on his feet. Chris sprayed a third time, and de Kere somehow remained standing. He swung, the blade hissing; Chris dodged it, but the blade sliced his arm above the right elbow. Blood dripped from the wound, spattering on the floor. The canister fell from his hand.

De Kere grinned. “Tricks don’t work here,” he said. “This is the real thing. Real sword. Watch it happen, pal.”

He prepared to swing again. He was still unsteady, but growing stronger quickly. Chris ducked as the blade whined over his head and slashed into the stacked bags of powder. The air was filled with gray particles. Chris stepped back again, and this time felt his foot against a basin on the floor. He started to kick it aside, then noticed its weight beneath his foot. It wasn’t one of the powder basins, it was a heavy paste. And it had a harsh smell. He recognized it immediately: it was the smell of quicklime.

Which meant the basin at his feet was filled with automatic fire.

Quickly, Chris bent over and lifted the basin in his hands.

De Kere paused.

He knew what it was.

Chris took the moment of hesitation and threw the basin directly at de Kere’s face. It struck him in the chest, the brown paste spattering his face and arms and body.

De Kere snarled.

Chris needed water. Where was there water? He looked around, desperate, but he already knew the answer: there was no water in this room. He was backed into a corner now. De Kere smiled. “No water?” he said. “Too bad, tricky boy.” He held his sword horizontally in front of him, and moved forward. Chris felt the stone against his back, and knew that he was finished. At least the others might get away.

He watched de Kere approach, slowly, confidently. He could smell de Kere’s breath; he was close enough to spit on him.

Spit on him.

In the instant that he thought it, Chris spat on de Kere — not in the face, but in the chest. De Kere snorted, disgusted: the kid couldn’t even spit. Wherever spittle touched the paste, it began to smoke and sputter.

De Kere looked down, horrified.

Chris spat again. And again.

The hissing was louder. There were the first sparks. In a moment, de Kere would burst into flames. Frantic, de Kere brushed at the paste with his fingers, but only spread it; now it was sizzling and crackling on his fingertips, from the moisture of his skin.

“Watch it happen, pal,” Chris said.

He ran for the door. Behind him, he heard a whump! as de Kere burst into flame. Chris glanced back to see that the knight’s entire upper body was engulfed in fire. De Kere was staring at him through the flames.

Then Chris ran. As hard and as fast as he could, he ran. Away from the arsenal.

:

At the middle gate, the others saw him running toward them. He was waving his hands. They didn’t understand why. They stood in the center of the gate, waiting for him to catch up.

He was shouting, “Go, go!” and gesturing for them to move around the corner. Marek looked back, and saw flames begin to leap up through the windows of the arsenal.

“Move!” he said. He pushed the others through the gate and into the next courtyard.

Chris came running through the gate and Marek grabbed his arm, pulling him to cover, just as the arsenal exploded. A great sphere of flame rose about the wall; the entire courtyard was bathed in fiery light. Soldiers and tents and horses were knocked flat by the shock wave. There was smoke and confusion everywhere.

“Forget the hoarding,” the Professor said. “Let’s go.” And they ran straight across the courtyard. They could see the final gatehouse directly ahead.

00:02:22

In the control room, there were screams and cheers. Kramer was jumping up and down. Gordon was pounding Stern on the back. The monitor was showing field fluctuations again. Intense and powerful.

“They’re coming home!” Kramer yelled.

Stern looked at the video screens, which showed the tanks in the room below. The technicians had already filled several shields with water, and the shields were holding. The remaining tanks were still being filled, though the water level was nearing the top.

“How much time?” he said.

“Two minutes twenty.”

“How long to fill the tanks?”

“Two minutes ten.”

Stern bit his lip. “We going to make it?”

“You bet your ass we are,” Gordon said.

Stern turned back to the field fluctuations. They were growing stronger and clearer, the false colors shimmering on the spikes. The unstable mountain peak was now stable, protruding above the surface, taking form. “How many are coming back?” he said. But he already knew the answer, because the mountain peak was dividing into separate ridges.

“Three,” the technician said. “Looks like three coming back.”

00:01:44

The outermost gatehouse was closed: the heavy grill of the portcullis was down and the drawbridge had been raised. Five guards now lay sprawled on the ground, and Marek was raising the portcullis just enough so they could pass beneath it. But the drawbridge was still shut fast.

“How do we get it open?” Chris said.

Marek was looking at the chains, which ran into the gatehouse itself. “Up there,” he said, pointing above. There was a winch mechanism on the second floor.

“You stay here,” Marek said. “I’ll do it.”

“Come right back,” Kate said.

“Don’t worry. I will.”

Hobbling up a spiral staircase, Marek came into a small stone room, narrow and bare, and dominated by the iron winch that raised the drawbridge. Here he saw an elderly man, white-haired, shaking with fear as he held an iron bar in the links of the chain. This iron bar was keeping the drawbridge closed. Marek shoved the old man aside and pulled the bar free. The chain rattled; the drawbridge began to lower. Marek watched it go down. He looked at his counter, and was startled to see that it said 00:01:19.

“André.” He heard Chris in his earpiece. “Come on.”

“I’m on my way.”

Marek turned to go. Then he heard running feet, and realized that there were soldiers on the roof of the guardhouse, coming down to see why the drawbridge was being lowered. If he left the room now, they would immediately stop the drawbridge from lowering any farther.

Marek knew what this meant. He had to stay longer.

:

On the ground floor below, Chris watched the drawbridge as it lowered, chains clanking. Through the opening, he could see dark sky and stars. Chris said, “André, come on.”

“There’s soldiers.”

“So?”

“I have to guard the chain.”

“What do you mean?” Chris said.

Marek didn’t answer. Chris heard a grunt, and a scream of pain. Marek was up there, fighting. Chris watched the drawbridge continue to descend. He looked at the Professor. But the Professor’s face was expressionless.

:

Standing by the staircase leading down from the roof, Marek held his sword high. He killed the first soldier as he came out. He killed the second one, too, kicking the bodies as they fell, keeping the floor clear. The other soldiers on the stairs paused in confusion, and he heard muttering and consternation.

The drawbridge chain still rattled. The drawbridge continued down.

“André. Come on.”

Marek glanced at his counter. It said 00:01:04. Just a little more than a minute, now. Looking out the window, he saw the others had not waited until the drawbridge was entirely down; they ran to the descending edge, and jumped out onto the field beyond the castle. Now he could hardly see them in the darkness.

“André.” It was Chris again. “André.”

Another soldier came down the stairs, and Marek swung his sword, which clanged against the winch, spitting sparks. The man hastily backed up, shouting and pushing the others.

“André, run for it,” Chris said. “You have time.”

Marek knew that was true. He could just make it. If he left now, the men couldn’t raise the drawbridge before he had run across it and was out on the plain with the others. He knew they were out there, waiting for him. His friends. Waiting to go back.

As he turned to go down the stairs, his glance fell on the old man, still cowering in the corner. Marek wondered what it must be like to live your entire life in this world. To live and love, constantly on the edge, with disease and starvation and death and killing. To be alive in this world.

“André. Are you coming?”

“There’s no time,” Marek said.

“André.”

He looked out on the plain and saw successive flashes of light. They were calling the machines. Getting ready to go.

:

The machines were there. They were all standing on their platforms. Cold vapor was drifting from the bases, curling across the dark grass.

Kate said, “André, come on.”

There was a short silence. Then: “I’m not leaving,” Marek said. “I’m staying here.”

“André. You’re not thinking right.”

“Yes, I am.”

She said, “Are you serious?”

Kate looked at the Professor. He just nodded slowly.

“All his life, he’s wanted this.”

Chris put the ceramic marker in the slot at his feet.

:

Marek watched from the window of the gatehouse.

“Hey, André.” It was Chris.

“See you, Chris.”

“Take care of yourself.”

“André.” It was Kate. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Good-bye, Kate.”

Then he heard the Professor say: “Good-bye, André.”

“Good-bye,” Marek said.

Through his earpiece, he heard a recorded voice say, “Stand still — eyes open — deep breath — hold it. . . . Now!”

On the plain, he saw a brilliant flash of blue light. Then there was another, and another, diminishing in intensity, until there was nothing more.

Doniger strode back and forth across the darkened stage. In the auditorium, the three corporate executives sat silently, watching him.

“Sooner or later,” he said, “the artifice of entertainment — constant, ceaseless entertainment — will drive people to seek authenticity. Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that exists for its own sake, that assumes its own shape. And what is the most authentic of all? The past.

“The past is a world that already existed before Disney and Murdoch and British Telecom and Nissan and Sony and IBM and all the other shapers of the present. The past was here before they were. The past rose and fell without their intrusion and molding. The past is real. It’s authentic. And this will make the past unbelievably attractive. Because the past is the only alternative to the corporate present.

“What will people do? They are already doing it. The fastest-growing segment of travel today is cultural tourism. People who want to visit not other places, but other times. People who want to immerse themselves in medieval walled cities, in vast Buddhist temples, Mayan pyramid cities, Egyptian necropolises. People who want to walk and be in the world of the past. The vanished world.

“And they don’t want it to be fake. They don’t want it to be made pretty, or cleaned up. They want it to be authentic. Who will guarantee that authenticity? Who will become the brand name of the past? ITC.

“I am about to show you,” he said, “our plans for cultural tourism sites around the world. I will concentrate on one in France, but we have many others, as well. In every case, we turn over the site to the government of that country. But we own the surrounding territory, which means we will own the hotels and restaurants and shops, the entire apparatus of tourism. To say nothing of the books and films and guides and costumes and toys and all the rest. Tourists will spend ten dollars to get into the site. But they’ll spend five hundred dollars in living expenses outside it. All that will be controlled by us.” He smiled. “To make sure that it is executed tastefully, of course.”

A graph came up behind him.

“We estimate that each site will generate in excess of two billion dollars a year, including merchandising. We estimate that total company revenues will exceed one hundred billion dollars annually by the second decade of the coming century. That is one reason for making your commitment to us.

“The other reason is more important. Under the guise of tourism, we are in effect building an intellectual brand name. Such brand names now exist for software, for example. But none exist for history. And yet history is the most powerful intellectual tool society possesses. Let us be clear. History is not a dispassionate record of dead events. Nor is it a playground for scholars to indulge their trivial disputes.

“The purpose of history is to explain the present — to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power — profound power. The power to define a whole society.

“The future lies in the past — in whoever controls the past. Such control has never before been possible. Now, it is. We at ITC want to assist our clients in the shaping of the world in which we all live and work and consume. And in doing so, I believe we will have your full and wholehearted support.”

There was no applause, just stunned silence. That was the way it always was. It took them a while to realize what he was saying. “Thanks for your attention,” Doniger said, and strode off the stage.

:

“This better be good,” Doniger said. “I don’t like to cut a session like that short.”

“It’s important,” Gordon said. They were walking down the corridor, toward the machine room.

“They’re back?”

“Yes. We got the shields working, and three of them are back.”

“When?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.”

“And?”

“They’ve been through a lot. One of them is pretty badly injured and will need hospitalization. The other two are okay.”

“So? What’s the problem?”

They went through a door.

“They want to know,” Gordon said, “why they weren’t told ITC’s plans.”

“Because it’s none of their business,” Doniger said.

“They risked their lives—”

“They volunteered.”

“But they—”

“Oh, fuck them,” Doniger said. “What is all this sudden concern? Who cares? They’re a bunch of historians — they’re all going to be out of a job, anyway, unless they work for me.”