Unburning Alexandria (6 page)

Being here also had the dual effect of distancing her from Alcibiades, yet making her think more about Thomas her mentor . . . and Max. She somehow missed Alcibiades less in the 21st century, so far from where she had come to love him. Did that make her superficial? She knew enough to know that when it came to time travel, the usual standards in life and love did not apply. . . . But what had happened to Max was something she could make no real sense of, even with her first-hand experience of how travel through millennia could jumble the soul.

How many times had she replayed it in her head, that nightmare on the shore of the Thames. . . . Max going down. . . . Why not just go back there, with the knowledge that Max would be slaughtered, and stop that from happening, stop him from going there? The answer was that she knew, even if she escaped from this prison in the pines, she could not just go back to London and stop herself and Max from walking down to that river on that morning in 150 AD. She knew that to stop that would be to prevent her being here right now, which would prevent her from going back there to prevent Max's death, and prevent everything else that had happened to her since. She knew that, but it didn't help the guilt. A painful breeze rustled through the trees and her pores. It whispered paradox, paradox, paradox. . . .

She shuddered and sneered at the breeze. She had stayed away from it. But she would find a way, somehow, of saving Max, of blowing through that paradox. Just as she would save the books of Alexandria. All things were possible in time travel. All things, she had to keep reminding herself.

She still needed to learn more, how to skate the loops without breaking the ice and the world around it. One thing she clearly understood about time travel is she had almost all the time that she needed. She could go back and save Max next year or the year after or the next decade. He could be saved whatever her age, whatever the time she came from. As long as she was alive, she could do that. It wouldn't matter to Max, he wouldn't suffer – he would be pulled away from the knives, and never know he had died, unless she or someone else told him. Sierra was the only one who would suffer the longer she waited to save Max.

She breathed out, shakily. Her first job now was getting out of here. She looked carefully at the legionaries outside. They could have been twenty-first century Mafia soldiers. She smiled, sourly. She wondered how many Mafia wise guys in the past hundred years had really been Heron's men on some damn mission.

She looked at each of the legionaries. This had to start with one – someone she could talk to, get him interested, get him started. . . . But who?

She looked at one, two, three faces. None very promising. She looked at a fourth, and a fifth. Even worse. She looked at a sixth–

He was standing by himself. She hadn't noticed him before. Something about this angle made him look very familiar. . . .

* * *

Jonah walked into her room about 15 minutes later. She ran to him, flung her arms around him, and kissed him on the lips – too passionately for a friend, she realized. She pulled away and looked at his face. "I'm just glad you're alive," she said and touched his cheek. Then– "It's probably not a good idea for us to stand here like this."

Jonah smiled. "You mean Heron's butchers? They would just think I was taking advantage of a beautiful woman in need – more beautiful than ever, in Hypatia's face."

"We're speaking English," Sierra said, still somewhat in shock. "And you're speaking it fluently. . . . It's been a long time since the Lux for you, hasn't it? You were barely more than a boy, then, and I . . . ." She thought he looked at least ten or fifteen years older. She had no idea whether she looked older or younger than Sierra as Hypatia–

Jonah nodded. "I have a son–"

"Benjamin!"

Jonah nodded again. For the first time in this conversation, he seemed uncomfortable. "His mother – my wife–"

"I know," Sierra said softly. "I'm so sorry." She hugged him, and kissed him again – this time, on his stubbly chin.

"He is three years old – when I saw him last. He is with my sister's family in Alexandria."

Sierra smiled. "When I saw him last he was nearly the same age as you when you were Heron's student in Alexandria, and you took us to that restaurant where someone threw a knife at me. . . ." She laughed for a second. "You should be very proud of him. When we met in Ptolemais, he had all of your strength and intelligence–"

They heard footsteps in the hallway.

Jonah touched her shoulder. "I'll return as soon as I can. I have a way for you to escape that will take Heron weeks to know you are missing."

* * *

Jonah returned nine days later. "New soldiers are being mixed into the rotation – this will give us more time for conversation."

"Good," Sierra said.

"What will you do – what do you want to do – when you leave here?"

"Three things," Sierra answered immediately. "Find Alcibiades, prevent someone else who was very dear to me from dying, and save what I can of the Library at Alexandria."

Jonah shook his head. "To attempt too much is to risk accomplishing nothing."

"I know," Sierra replied. "But truthfully, I want to do even more than those three things. I also want to find my mentor, Thomas – he drew me into all of this in the first place."

Jonah frowned.

"Not every mentor is as evil as your Heron," Sierra said. "Thomas was good to me in many ways."

"As Heron was to me – evil and good can live quite comfortably together even in the same soul, I have found."

"Your philosophy was astute when I knew you," Sierra said. "It is even better now."

"Thank you." Jonah smiled. "Let us start with Alcibiades – you know that he was the source of Theon's notation about a cure for the illness of Socrates."

"That is what Heron told me before he took me here – I did not know whether to believe him – yet–"

"It is true. Though I do not believe that Alcibiades intended to plant a seed of false hope from the future. He was very new to time travel then, and was not versed in avoiding these kinds of contaminations."

Sierra was silent for a moment. "But you are," she said. "You know how to tread carefully."

"The chances of contamination are always high, regardless of how much care you take. You would like me to take you to Alcibiades now, or at very least tell you where he is." Jonah's face grew grave. "I cannot. To possess such knowledge would endanger too many things."

Sierra started to object–

"What I can safely tell you is he is alive," Jonah said softly, "and he is well."

* * *

On the fourth visit, their conversation turned to the Library of Alexandria. "It was burned at least three times, different parts of the Library but all interconnected by passageways and tunnels, as you know," Jonah said. "By the pagan Julius Caesar's soldiers in 47-48 BC, possibly by accident as they fought in the harbor. By the Christian Patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, in 390-391 AD – the same Theophilus who later converted Synesius to Christianity."

Sierra winced at the name Theophilus, because of his connection to Synesius and because of what he did to the Library. Of the three despoilers of civilization, Theophilus was the only one she had had the displeasure of meeting in person. She had avoided attending his funeral as Hypatia when he died in 412 AD.

"And by the Islamic Caliph Omar in 640 AD. Only my Jewish people are thoroughly innocent," Jonah concluded.

Sierra laughed. "That is only because your people were long removed from any power by the time the Library was constructed by Alexander's general."

"Not completely true–"

"But I grant you that it's not in the Jewish culture to ever burn as wondrous a thing as a book."

Jonah smiled . . . then sighed. "There are serious, different problems – perhaps insurmountable – attached to stopping each of the three burnings. Perhaps most profound, and obvious: preventing either or both the first and second burnings would only leave more books vulnerable to Omar, unless his burning was stopped as well. But the Islamic tide in 640 AD was unstoppable in Alexandria. Even killing Caliph Omar would have no effect. We would have to kill followers of the Prophet Mohammed in such large numbers that– God forgive me, but even were that possible, I am afraid I would prefer to let the Library burn than ever attempt such a mass extermination. Human lives are worth more than books, however profound their inscribed knowledge."

"I see you have given this much thought," Sierra considered, "and I agree with you. But even if we sought to change the life of one man – such as Julius Caesar – we could be triggering enormously dangerous changes to history. Had anything been different in Julius Caesar's life – had he lived longer, died sooner, made Cleopatra his wife, never met her – we might well have had no Roman Empire, certainly not the one that Augustus founded in Caesar's aftermath."

Jonah looked out of the window at the legionaries on the lawn. "No Roman Empire could have its advantages. But I take your point. So where does that leaves us? We cannot conduct a massacre, and even the murder of one man could have consequences disastrous to history."

"Oh, I would gladly see Theophilus dead," Sierra said, "and Synesius could find another priest to convert him. But, yes, even Theophilus's death could have unforeseen consequences."

"Which means we abandon saving the Library of Alexandria, and move on to another one of your goals when you leave here," Jonah said.

"No," Sierra said. "I think I have at least a partial solution, which wouldn't kill a single person and won't interfere with any of those histories."

* * *

Heron came to see her two mornings later. He bared his yellowed teeth in a big smile. "You are free to go."

"What?"

"I have no further interest in keeping you prisoner here."

"Then why did you take me from my work in Alexandria?" she asked. And my vigil for Alcibiades? she thought.

"To save you from yourself, as I have told you. To prevent you being hacked to death by those Nitrian maniacs – whether in 415 or 414 or 413 AD. You wouldn't leave with Synesius, you wouldn't leave with Mr. Appleton, though both tried repeatedly. Someone had to save you - to save you from your compulsion to die."

"How do you propose to do that if I am free to travel back there. . . " She paused. "Ah, I see. You locked that time – you programmed all the chairs not to be able to go back to that time – one of your favorite tricks. You did this to the chairs in New York, London, and Athens. I assume it took you some time to do that – even you can't instantly be in more than one place at the same time. And I assume your legionaries will be looking for me, if I travel back to any earlier time, and try to reach Alexandria in 413 the old fashioned way – by living into it."

Heron bowed. "Precisely." He pulled out ten new hundred-dollar bills and put them on the table. "Pocket change. But more than enough to get you to New York City. And I left a change of mid-21st century clothing for you near the door." And he left.

Sierra thought over her options. This was no doubt part of Heron's plan, to free her now – for whatever real purpose he had – but in a way that kept her away from 413 and 415 AD. Her leaving now might also separate her from Jonah. . . . Did Heron know about his being here? . . . Impossible to say. . . .

But . . . she thought she might know of another way to get back to Alexandria at the time she wanted. She took the money, put on the coveralls Heron had provided, and walked out of the compound. No one stopped her or said a word. The Hotel De Vie fastrain terminal was a forty-minute walk down the azalea path. She was used to walking and enjoyed it. She found it preferable, in the past, to sitting in a carriage pulled by slaves or animals. When she arrived in the town center, she ducked into its one clothing store and bought a new outfit. She left Heron's clothing in the changing room, just in case its fibers had been set to do some digital tattling to Heron.

[mid-Hudson valley, NY 2061 AD]

Sierra looked out of the window as her train zipped down the western bank of the Hudson. She had been in New York City in 2061 only once before, and very briefly, when she and Socrates had taken a taxi from the airport to the Millennium Club and spent just a few minutes there with Mr. Charles. . . . Far more vivid – and painful – in her memory was her immediately following visit to the Club in 2042 . . . . She thought often of Socrates, Thomas, and Mr. Charles sitting at that table, as she said goodbye. . . . They of course would always be at that table at that moment, having the same conversation, Socrates giving her the same sage advice, unless someone mucked around in the past and changed that history. She hoped, however, that that particular conversation stayed intact. She drew an odd comfort from it through the pain. She also wondered how much longer Socrates had survived, given his illness . . . .

That had been the last time she had set foot in the Club, in any year. New York had been cold and grey on that 13 April 2061. Now it was 6 September, and the world outside her window was warm and green. That made it safe – or at least not dangerously courting of paradox – for her to visit the Club today. No chance of her running into herself and Mr. Charles and Socrates. . . .

[New York City, 2061 AD]

Sierra disembarked at Grand Central Terminal. Not much had changed, as far as she could tell, between 2061 and 2042, her home year. Grand Central had been kept wonderfully the same since its great renovation at the turn of the 21st century. The fastrain commuter system had been in place with its lightning speed since the 2020s. Maybe the women looked a little sluttier in 2061. But she knew better than to make the facile generalization that the future was always more libertine. Some of what she'd seen casually exposed in Alexandria was enough to make a crow blush, as that antique Kim Carnes song – one of her favorites – put it. Then she thought – funny how songs you come to love as a kid stay with you the rest of your life, wherever you are. She had first heard that song at her boyfriend's house, when she was fourteen. Tommy had been a real fan of late-20th-century music.