Unburning Alexandria (14 page)

They made their way back toward their entrance. They encountered no further Romans. And when they left the Library of Alexandria, walked a distance, and looked back at the Library and the harbor, they all saw the truth of what Jonah had said.

"The fires in the harbor are subsiding," Jonah now observed. "If the legionaries of Julius Caesar are responsible for burning any of the Library tonight, it will not be from contagion of the burning harbor."

"Hail Caesar," Max said and laughed. But neither Jonah nor Arsinoe joined him.

Chapter Seven

[Alexandria, 150 AD]

Sierra, Heron, and the Nubian walked quickly down the halls of the Library, past Claudius Ptolemy still muttering in his scrolls, past corridors that looked increasingly less familiar to Sierra.

She looked at the hilt of the knife in the Nubian's sash. That was familiar to her, and comforting, because she knew that Heron knew exactly what the Nubian would do with that knife, even with his last breath, if Heron led them into a trap of some sort, or even if he just tried to escape.

"The ancient rooms are close," Heron now volunteered, as if he could hear her thoughts, "rooms resistant to flames, rooms where scrolls can be saved, as I told you."

"The Library is under water in my time," Sierra said, "where the harbor is now. Can your rooms resist the sea?"

Heron smiled. "I am known in these times, and in your times, for my understanding of air and water and their mingling."

The Nubian tensed. He whispered in Sierra's ear. All three stopped.

"He says there are warriors ahead," Sierra said to Heron, "strangers to Alexandria."

"He can see through walls?" Heron asked, with slight contempt.

"He can smell them," Sierra replied.

Heron gave no response.

"I have access to parts of the same future as you," Sierra said.

Heron said nothing.

Now Sierra smiled, and touched her face. "I obviously am living proof that I know about reconstructive DNA. Not much of a jump from that to your enhanced legionaries, my enhanced Nubians, whatever we might call them."

Heron relented and spoke. "By far the best solution to having superior fighters in the past, without risking their discovery. Androids with any kind of visible technology and of course robots would proclaim their inhumanity, dead or alive. As would anything that didn't die after mortal wounding."

Sierra nodded, in the grudging appreciation she found she often had for how thoroughly Heron had thought through the razored intricacies of time travel – some of which, she was certain, still eluded her.

Heron caught her emotion. "Do you know how deeply I yearn to cease my activities, to return to my life as a scholar, to pursue knowledge and its applications, once again for its own sake? But I dare not."

"Perhaps you should try harder," Sierra said.

Heron smiled.

Sierra looked at him. His smile was certainly not one of happiness.

"To know that time travel is possible, to already be playing a role in its workings, is to make you its slave," Heron said.

"Slave?"

"How can I do nothing, not intervene?" Heron asked. "To do nothing might well serve to confirm, to set into permanence, a reality which was not meant to be – a reality which perhaps I earlier was responsible for bringing into being, not knowing I was doing such a thing. No, doing nothing when time travel is possible may be far more damaging than acting. Doing nothing may be the worst kind of intervention–"

All three turned in the direction of approaching steps.

"Can your Nubian handle this?" Heron asked, with a slight smile.

The Nubian moved forward, a knife in each hand.

A man, neither legionary nor Nubian, walked out of a corner and into their view.

Sierra gasped, then bolted towards the man, around the Nubian, who tried in vain to stop her with an outstretched arm.

She tried to see clearly, take in every possible photon, but her tears interfered. "Max!"

* * *

Sierra knew she couldn't hold Max and focus on Heron at the same time. She didn't want to let Heron out of her control, but– "Max!" She flung her arms around Max.

And the Nubian was upon them, trying to separate them.

"No! Leave us alone!"

The Nubian understood and pulled back.

Max said something to her, in English, which she couldn't quite get.

She pointed to Heron, who was walking slowly towards them. "Stop him," she commanded the Nubian. "But do not hurt him."

The Nubian hesitated a split second and then went for Heron.

Max was speaking. "–you. Is it you?"

Sierra held him close and now sobbed uncontrollably. "You're alive."

* * *

Sierra didn't know what she was thinking. She thought she was thinking that the Nubian would get Heron, and she would hug Max and never let go, but then she realized that the Nubian had been gone too long and her tongue had been in Max's mouth and she was crying, too.

"You taste the same," Max said. "Some philosopher once said tasting is the ultimate confirmation of reality."

"How did you–"

But Max's warm mouth was on hers again, and she put her hand on his face, tenderly, and she held him hard and for a moment she was back in her apartment in New York City and Max was at the door and she was annoyed because he had interrupted her reading of that infinite regress manuscript and– "How did you survive? I thought I saw you– their knives. I – I wanted to go back." She could feel her tears thick on his cheek, slick and wet like the time they had been caught in the cloudburst in London.

"It's ok," Max said. "If you had stayed, if you had tried to help, if you had come back to help, you would have been killed, too."

"You were killed? But–"

"I don't know," Max said. "I don't really remember much of what happened to me after the stabbing and slashing started." He pulled slightly away and breathed, shakily. "It was the worst pain I ever felt in my life. I know I was close to death. But I was saved by future surgeons. And I went through rigorous training. I feel good now. Better than before. Stronger."

"Heron–" Sierra began.

"Heron? What connection do you have to Heron?" Max demanded and looked at her intently. "I – I'm sorry. I'm still trying to get used to what you look like."

"Heron is responsible for all of this," Sierra said. "No, I am, too. We all are, in a way. But I think Heron is the most responsible – have you run into him yet?"

Max shook his head no.

"Of course not," Sierra said. "You would have recognized him when I pointed to him."

Max looked down the corridor behind Sierra. It was now empty. "That old guy was Heron?"

"Yes – why does that surprise you, if you don't know what he looks like?"

"I was supposed to find Heron back here and– that wasn't Heron."

"How can you know that, if you never met?"

"I was given this picture of Heron." Max reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small digi-portrait.

* * *

Sierra looked at the image a long time. She tried to calm herself and decide what to do. Where were Heron and the Nubian? "I don't know who that is," she lied. "It's not Heron – not as he was just a few minutes ago."

Max laughed, sarcastically. "You people not only travel through time, you travel through faces."

"Who gave you this digi-trait?" Sierra asked.

"Jonah," Max replied. "I met him and someone named Synesius in the future. Synesius says he knows you."

"Yes," Sierra said. "Ok. . . ." She breathed deeply. "Let's see what happened to my Nubian, and to Heron in the flesh." She pulled Max's hand. He squeezed it, let go, then walked in front of her. He held his hand up in a protective gesture when they reached the corner and carefully looked around.

Sierra ignored his hand and looked, too.

An empty corridor was all they saw. No Heron, no Nubian, not even any chambers.

"How did you get here – to this place in the Library?" Sierra asked Max.

"Through an entrance on the other side." He pointed in a direction which, as far as Sierra knew, had no entrances or exits to the Library. "Should we go there, now?" Max asked.

Sierra considered. "No. Let's go back to Heron's quarters."

* * *

Sierra and Max retraced the steps taken by Sierra, Heron, and the Nubian a few minutes earlier.

Ptolemy was still mumbling. This time, he looked up from his scroll and spoke. "You are taking a long orbit around me," he said, with a faint smile, "and you have attracted a new satellite!"

Sierra smiled back at him. This was the first time Ptolemy had ever spoken to her! She had taken a plane ride with Socrates, she had saved Plato's life, you couldn't beat that, but she still found it thrilling to interact with anyone so famous from history. "Have you seen any other satellites – have you seen Heron?" She tried to keep her voice light. Heron obviously was one historical figure she got little pleasure from knowing.

"Heron?" Ptolemy asked, as if he had never heard the name before. He resumed mumbling into his scroll, his finger running over the words, his back half turned.

"You do not know– thank you." Sierra thought the better of pressing him. Better to keep this new contact for another day.

She and Max walked the rest of the short way to Heron's quarters. They carefully entered. Sierra had not expected to find Heron here, but it was the only place she could think of in the Library to look for him. But his chambers were empty, and just as she and Heron and the Nubian had left them.

"We can't stay here," she said to Max. "We have no protection with the Nubian gone, and Heron could return with his legionaries."

"Like the ones on the Thames," Max said, darkly.

"Yes. I'd like to stay here, it's probably the best chance we have of finding Heron, but–"

"I agree with you. Where can we stay, then?"

"I have quarters elsewhere in the Library – about five minutes from here," Sierra said. "I arranged for them earlier. I don't think Heron knows about them."

* * *

Max was sleeping, and Sierra was softly crying. She had been awake all night, thinking of her parents' place in Quivett Neck, on Sea Street, on Cape Cod, in the 21st century. Thinking of Max back then.

It was close to dawn.

She had been hoping Alcibiades would come to her in Alexandria for so long, and here was Max, 250 years earlier than she had been waiting for Alcibiades.

She had not been with anyone since she and Alcibiades had made love on that little boat in the Aegean, after she had saved Plato, before they had saved Socrates. She could still smell that soft, sweet breeze off the sea. It smelled like Alcibiades. It had helped keep her going, all of these years.

Max shifted slightly in his sleep. Sierra wiped her cheek, and put her hand on Max's chest. She loved him, too, even if it was different than with Alcibiades.

It had felt good to be with Max. She kissed him gently on the forehead. She had not told him about Alcibiades.

There had been only two reasons she was back here now. One was Alcibiades. The other was saving whatever she could from this Library, which had become her home, her life, in 413 AD.

Now there was a third – Max. And a fourth . . . finding out about the face in the digi-portrait . . . how Jonah had come to tell Max it was Heron . . . and whether it was, indeed, Heron. She had seen him only once, in person. But she had also seen his portrait at least one or two other times, in Synesius's hands. Augustine of Hippo . . . Saint Augustine . . . patron saint of printers and brewers and, along with Thomas Aquinas, one of the two greatest minds in the history of the Church. What connection did Augustine have to Heron? Was he also the patron saint of time travelers? Would Heron assume Augustine's identity in the same way she had taken on Hypatia's and the same way the man who was now Heron may have done that with the original Heron some time in the past? Was everyone traveling through time also traveling through faces as Max had suggested?

She looked at Max and kissed him long and gently on the lips. He wanted to help her. She knew that and needed that. He could help with saving the Library, and with unraveling the digi-portrait.

As for Alcibiades . . .

Sierra put her head on Max's chest, and now hoped her tears didn't wake him. She soon fell sound asleep.

* * *

They walked quickly and quietly to Heron's quarters again in the late morning. He was still gone.

They found a place to have breakfast, not too far from the Library. They ate peaches and persea, black bread and honey. Max was smacking his lips.

They talked about saving the Library. "We can forget about Caesar's time," Max said. "His fire ships had no effect on the Library." He told her what he and Jonah had witnessed. "If the fires were set by secret arsonists – if there were actually any fires in the Library back then – they would be much more difficult to prevent than the public fires. We would have no idea where they started."

Sierra nodded. "I haven't been here long enough – I was never here long enough, though it feels when I'm here like I've been here forever – to get any real idea of the Library's complete holdings. But if Caesar's men did no damage, the scrolls should all be here now."

"Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra 200,000 scrolls – the entire Pergamon Library – as a gift," Max said. "If true, those would still be here, even if Caesar's people had earlier burned every text in the Library."

"Pergamon must've had every text Aristotle ever wrote," Sierra said, wistfully, "likely dozens we never even heard of." She felt like a graduate student again. It hadn't felt that good the first time, but was keenly good now. That's what being deprived of your everyday life will do for you, she realized. She saw that Max was looking at her.

He smiled. "You're still a kid in a candy store when it comes to learning something new." He stroked her shoulder.

She put her head on his arm. It was good talking to him again–