Unburning Alexandria (9 page)

There, written in the clear, careful hand which Jonah was certain was Heron's, was the single word,
Chronica
.

[Alexandria, 150 AD]

Heron walked through the main hall of the Library, moderately populated at this hour with scholars and their students. He passed by Claudius Ptolemy, forever pacing, forever muttering, bowing slightly up and down, like a Jew in prayer. Heron had long toyed with the idea of setting Ptolemy straight, coaxing him to consider how his spheres might work were the Sun not the Earth situated at the center. Ptolemy's mathematics were already good, extraordinarily so. Their only real fault was their incorrect geocentric premise.

Yes, it was tempting. A heliocentric model, a solar system as it really was, backed not just by Greek speculation but solid mathematics. What would that have done to human history? A space-faring civilization in Alexandria or Rome? Not likely. They were still far away from basic combustible engines, even though Heron had left them his
Pneumatica
and his
Automata
. Those two scrolls should have been enough to have given the Romans steam power and locomotives. They had been the first lessons from the future he had planted back here.

But they had not been enough. And so, Heron had learned many, many times – the hard way, as they put it in some cultures – that ideas were not enough. For they moved neither material nor inertial stupidity.

Heron looked back at Ptolemy, still moving in his own epicycle. No, a solar system rendered correctly even by Ptolemy and his equations would likely not have much effect – would likely not be accepted by very many, because it went so blatantly against common sense, what people were sure they were seeing with their own eyes when the sun rose from one side of the Earth every morning and set on the other side every night. After all, it did seem for all the world that the world was standing still and the sun was slowly moving.

Still, it was tempting, very tempting – doing something to get humans into space much sooner. . . . Heron had tried to do it, one other time, with someone in the ancient world who was really no less a cosmic thinker than Ptolemy. And Heron had failed. He had traveled to the island of Samos around 300 BC, and put ideas of a solar system into the head of the bright 10-year-old, Aristarchus. And the boy had grown into a brilliant ancient astronomer, who devised a heliocentric system, and yet here was Ptolemy 450 years later, mumbling in the hall, working out his equations for a system with the Earth still at the center, as if Aristarchus had never existed.

Fortunately, Heron had had better luck with Copernicus.

He bid goodnight to his rumination about Ptolemy and speeding up the development of space travel, and went to his room.

A good time to turn to time travel, as he waited for Sierra Water's possible arrival, just as he had awaited her here in Alexandria, in this very room, at almost this very same time, when he had been much younger, and he did not yet know her name. Heron took a piece of papyrus that he had already inscribed in great detail. He wrote a single word on the top:
Chronica
.

[Alexandria, 413 AD]

Synesius could not sleep. He donned his garments, took a beeswax candle, and walked slowly to Hypatia's room. The halls of the Library were empty. He thought the dawn was close.

Hypatia's room was as empty as the halls. He knew she was not here, but he was disappointed, nonetheless. He sat on her bed and imagined her, hair across her face, messy with half sleep. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her many times, in many places. . . . She began to respond. . . .

He opened his eyes. Plato was wrong about this, as was Plato's new champion, Augustine. Flesh was better than what the mind could conjure, at least what his poor mind could imagine. . . . Yet he was aroused by these imaginings.

He picked up his candle from the floor and looked around the room one more time. A small gleaming object caught his attention. It was in a corner, nearly under the bed, likely invisible to anyone from any other angle, with any other kind of lighting.

He placed it in the palm of his hand, and examined it in the candle light. Its shape was an ab – the Egyptian heart-soul. He opened the hinge. A picture flickered within – in three dimensions. He jerked his head back, involuntarily. But the locket did not frighten him. It captivated him. Another of Heron's inventions, no doubt. . . .

In the picture, an older man was pulling a younger man away from a woman, the same age as the younger man. None looked familiar to Synesius. The young man and woman were very fair – likely of far Northern origin. The older man was balding.

Synesius could not even be sure this was Hypatia's, but he felt that it was, and, more, was of great value to her. Her leaving it here, then, bode no good. Either she had left in a fearful hurry, or had been taken against her will. This strange picture in his hand was slim evidence, he knew, but–

He heard footsteps in the hall.

"Synesius!" It was Josephus. "I am glad that I found you."

"What is it?"

"A ship arrived last hour from Carthage," Josephus replied.

"Odd time for a ship to arrive."

"I know," Josephus replied. "But it carried important information for you– "

"Yes?"

"Marcellinus – and his brother, Apringius – have been taken prisoner."

"By who, the Donatists?" Synesius knew better than to say the Nitrians – they took no prisoners. "Are they insane? Now General Maricus has just the reason he needs to destroy them!"

Josephus's mouth worked before he replied. "Maricus is the one who took them prisoner – and at the Donatists's behest, no doubt. The General was growing angrier by the hour at the brutal tactics of Marcellinus and Apringius."

Synesius was silent.

"Augustine is pleading for their lives," Josephus said.

Synesius nodded slowly. "We must return to Carthage, immediately – alert the gubernator of the ship that brought this report. Tell him he will be very well paid. . . . Go!"

Josephus left. Synesius considered. No, he could not stay in Alexandria any longer. Which meant he was less likely to see Hypatia again. Maybe he would never see her again. Maybe he would never know for sure if she lived or had died. . . .

Synesius opened his hand. It had clenched closed the moment Josephus had arrived. Synesius was not a thief. But he knew he could not leave this place without the heart-soul of Hypatia that he held in his hand.

[Alexandria, 150 AD]

Sierra walked swiftly through the Library. It had been a day. She had timed her arrival here to miss Heron as well as her younger self and Jonah. Not that it likely would have mattered if she had run into herself as Ampharete, and Jonah as Heron's apprentice. Neither would have recognized her passing on the street.

Certainly Sierra had had no idea what Hypatia looked like, when Sierra had been here as Ampharete back then. Neither would Jonah at that point, Sierra was pretty sure. No one back here had ever seen Hypatia. Except, possibly, Heron.

But he had left before Ampharete and Jonah – he was already gone, Jonah had told her, when she had awoken that morning. She remembered every instant of that strange day. She'd been sound asleep, dreaming that someone was looking at her, enjoying looking at her . . . . And when she awoke, Jonah was indeed in the next room, in Heron's quarters right here in Library, and Heron was gone. And she and Jonah had boarded the Lux. . . .

She quickened her pace. She glanced at her wrist for her watch. She'd left it in the future, of course. But even her brief sojourn in the future had brought back a flood of reflexes she had carefully diverted during her time in the past. . . . So she had no precise knowledge of the time of day, but–

Good, there was the Nubian. She had acquired him earlier. He approached from the shadows. She knew he had a knife under his garb. It wasn't to hurt her. It was to protect her. She nodded at him and smiled slightly. They turned a corner.

Claudius Ptolemy was mumbling into his scrolls, moving his head up and down. He reminded Sierra of a pigeon in a playground. Ptolemy barely noticed her and the Nubian as they swept past him.

Heron's quarters were straight ahead–

She put her hand on the Nubian to stop him. The door was wide open. She could see Heron inside. As far as she could tell, Heron could not see her. What was he doing here?

Had Jonah lied to her all those years ago about Heron's leaving? Had Jonah simply been mistaken? Or was this a later Heron, who had doubled or tripled or whatever back here?

That was the most likely explanation, but–

She started to slowly back off. No–

She shook her head and her caution off and walked quickly to Heron's open doorway. The Nubian was right behind her. She could not back away from this now. She and the Nubian entered.

Heron rose. "I've been expecting you–"

"Sit down," Sierra ordered. The Nubian enforced this with a heavy hand on the inventor's shoulder.

"You needn't be concerned," Heron said, with some irritation. "None of my men are here."

"I know," Sierra said.

"You came here to save some of the texts," Heron said.

"Yes, but I realize there is no point in my trying to save anything with you at large."

Heron smiled. "You wish to make me your prisoner?"

"There is probably no point in my doing that, either."

"Then. . . ." Heron's bushy brows knitted, and he laughed. "You wouldn't kill me – I still have a near infinity of information that you need. Such as how to fully control the chairs."

"True," Sierra replied. "But I can get that kind of information from your younger self, any time.

Heron tried to rise. The Nubian kept him down. "You're not a killer," Heron said.

"You weren't supposed to be here," Sierra said.

"You won't kill me – you can't be sure that I'm not an earlier Heron than you suppose, whose future self has already interacted with you in some significant way, and you won't risk killing me and thereby unraveling your own past–"

"I'm willing to risk it." Sierra nodded to the Nubian, who put his knife under Heron's neck.

"I can show you something, right now," Heron rasped.

Sierra considered. She looked at the Nubian. "Kill–"

"I can show you something that will be useful, essential, to exactly what you want to do, right now. As you must know by now, the process of traveling through time to the future strips the very electrons from your recording devices and renders them useless. You'll get no texts to the future that way. But I can show you a different way to save them."

"I gave Alcibiades a dictionary from the future, and the electrons worked just fine in that," Sierra responded.

"Yes, but that was then, and this is now, and travel to the past is not the same as travel to the future, which exacts a far greater toll on electrons."

"Are you saying you changed the settings in the chairs to prevent transport of recorders from here to the future?" Sierra put her hand on the Nubian's wrist. "I'll take this knife from the Nubian and slit your throat myself."

Heron was not smiling. "I am saying you need me, alive, with what I know now, at this instant, to show you how to save the scrolls."

Chapter Four

[Carthage, 413 AD]

"Synesius of Cyrene, Bishop of Ptolemais." Augustine's man, the Nubian, spoke the introduction in his rich, mellifluous voice.

Augustine looked up from his scroll and nodded. "You look more weary than ever – please sit," he said to Synesius, and motioned the Nubian to leave.

Synesius sat and produced his own scroll. "I could have warned Marcellinus."

"You discovered something about Maricus's treachery in Alexandria?" Augustine shook his head. "Too late – Marcellinus and his brother were already under arrest."

Now Synesius shook his head. "I discovered something in this scroll. . . ." Synesius gave the scroll to Augustine. "Your friend Jonah gave this to me, and asked me not to read it until this morning."

Augustine opened the scroll and sniffed it. Then he read it. "This clearly was not written today," he said, without looking up. "It smells at least months old." Then he looked at Synesius. "There was nothing you could have done today. Only an act of God could have saved the brothers."

Synesius slowly nodded. Then said, "I knew about this – what would happen today – nearly three months ago."

"I do not understand."

"I thought that the scroll might contain some knowledge that could help me save Hypatia – I read it almost the moment Jonah left."

"Three months ago?"

Synesius nodded.

"You no doubt thought it was nonsense at the time – Marcellinus imprisoned by his own general? Nonsense. You cannot be blamed. You did not believe a word of it."

"I believed it," Synesius said.

Augustine looked at him.

"It was illogical, totally contrary to the facts that were before me, but I believed it. I cannot tell you why. I just knew in my soul that it was a true prediction."

Augustine turned his head and looked out the window. "You owe me no explanations. But . . . you did not say anything about this – not to Marcellinus, not to Apringius, not to anyone – not even to me. And you left their fate in my poor hands . . . which, as you saw, earlier today, were insufficient for the task."

Synesius nodded and marveled at Augustine's self-control. The great Bishop of Hippo had been nearly in tears, at the execution, four hours ago, pleading in vain for Marcellinus. And now there was barely a trace of anger in his voice. "I was warned by Jonah," Synesius said, "not to act on what I read, lest it damage history, and invalidate the very proof from the future. Forgive me–"

"I am not hearing your confession."

"I know," Synesius said. "I am not here to confess."

"Oh?"

"I am here to inquire why you sent Jonah to me – and what you know about him. He clearly possesses powerful capacities."

Augustine returned his gaze to Synesius. "It is not just Jonah. There are others who possess this power. It could change the whole nature of this world – the very relationship between God and Man."