Ben Jeapes - Time's Chariot

The Correspondent made a non-committal noise. To his surprise an item of knowledge about Isfahan dropped into place in his mind. Isfahan was already doomed, but it would soon recover from the fate that awaited it. In 1051 it would be conquered by the Seljuk Turks and as compensation it would become the capital of their empire. But by 1051, the Correspondent would be long gone. After 1037 he would have no further reason for staying here.

1037: another rationed scrap of memory. As a Correspondent he knew he was a free agent, but apparently not that free. He hadn’t been dropped in eleventh century Persia on a whim. Thirty seconds ago he had been a casual wanderer but now he knew he was here to meet someone, and that this particular someone would die in 1037. The man was known to have spent the last fourteen years of his life as scientific adviser and physician to the ruler of Isfahan, so that gave the Correspondent somewhere to start his search.

‘Are you well?’ Ali was looking at him with anxiety. The Correspondent realized his expression must have been blank, his thoughts miles away.

‘Yes, I’m well,’ he said. ‘And yes, Ali, this is a marvellous city indeed. Do you know where the palace might be?’

Ali gave him a strange look but, yes, he did know where the palace was and he was happy to act as a guide. It was an impressive structure and the two men stood a safe distance off to observe it.

‘Do you have business in there?’ Ali asked.

‘I’ve come to meet a man.’

‘Then ask to be announced to him.’

‘He’s never heard of me,’ said the Correspondent, ‘but I know how to get his attention. I need parchment, and charcoal, and ink — black, red and blue.’

Later he lay on his bed in his room, hired with money he had taken from the dead bandits when Ali wasn’t looking, and composed his report. His eyes stared blankly towards the ceiling, and though it was dark he could easily see the plaster above him. He had turned all his senses to maximum while he prepared his report; should anyone come by, they would find him apparently in a coma, and he had no intention of letting that happen.

First he put in the straightforward sensory data of the day. The air, unpolluted but also hot and dusty. The terrain, tough and unyielding, only just begrudging a living to the locals. The precise temperature, the shade of blue of the sky, the texture of the rock and the sand.

Other things — things that made him feel good. The friendship of the caravan, and of Ali. The gratitude of Ali’s father. The vitality of Isfahan outside his window; a city of only a few thousand but still more alive, more animated than the Home Time with all its billions ever could be. The taste of the food, the smell of the people and animals.

( And how did he know what the Home Time was like when he had such a poor memory of it? He just… did. )

When the report was finished, he breathed a sigh. His first! Now it just needed filing. The moon was up, so…

He thought , and a tone that only he could hear sounded in his head.

‘ RC/1029, stand by ,’ said a voice. Then, ‘ RC/1029, transmit .’ He thought again and in a couple of seconds it was over.

‘ Report received, RC/1029 ,’ said the voice.

His first report was filed. A big moment! He got out of bed and strolled over to the window to look at the moon. Somewhere up there was the station, awaiting retrieval by those who had put it there, centuries from now. It was comforting to consider. He had no doubt that sooner or later in his career he would feel very lonely and it would be good to know that up there was something else from the future. A link to the Home Time. As long as the moon was up, he would be able to make contact with it. That was another item in the innate knowledge he had brought back with him.

He had a thousand years to go before he could return to the Home Time. In a thousand years time, in the twenty-first century, the world would be sufficiently advanced technologically that the Home Time could send the recall equipment back without it appearing anachronistic. A thousand years until Recall Day. No doubt he had had his reasons for volunteering for this assignment, but thinking about it now, it did seem rather a long time.

But he was at the start of his career; he was alive and well and surrounded by thousands upon thousands of facts and minutiae waiting to be noted and reported on. And tomorrow he would start by seeking out the man in the palace whose philosophies would help carve out the path of western science, centuries hence, and who would one day be known in the West as the third Aristotle — but that of course lay in the future, and the Correspondent had better reason than most to know that there was a great deal of future ahead.

‘Are you looking for someone, my son?’

Ali Salim Said started when his father spoke. He had been searching around the caravan fruitlessly and his expression had grown more and more baffled.

‘I’m looking for Salim, Father,’ he said. His new friend yesterday had eventually yielded a name, but only after his father had asked for it three times. ‘He has vanished.’

‘Isfahan is a large place,’ his father said with a shrug.

‘He is not in his room, which he hired,’ Ali said. That point still smarted with him. To have the hospitality of the caravan, yet to turn it down like that… And then to vanish…

‘My son.’ Ali’s father put a friendly hand on his shoulder. ‘Your friend Salim was… strange. Did you not notice?’

‘He saved me from three bandits! I told you that!’

‘Indeed you did. You also told me he saved you when you called to him in the name of the Prophet, blessings be upon his name, but first he stood by and watched. Now, do you recall how I had to try and get his name out of him? Indeed, do you know a single thing about the man other than what he has grudgingly told you? For saving your life he has my eternal thanks, but when you have my years and my experience, you too will notice these things in strangers. They are not always what they seem. Did Abraham not entertain three angels without realising it?’

‘You think he was an angel?’ Ali wasn’t sure whether to scoff at the idea, or be awed.

‘I think he was a man whose life’s path only briefly crossed yours, my son. If he wants you to find him again, he will let you do so. If not, accept it as the will of Allah. I only ask that you be prepared for the possibility that you will not see your new friend again.’

The Correspondent sat on a cushion and sipped his coffee in the calm of the palace while his host paced round and round him, feasting his eyes on the document with which the Correspondent had gained entry. They were completely alone.

‘Fascinating. Truly fascinating.’ Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina was 49 years old but looked older — he had never seen eye to eye with more orthodox Muslims on the subjects of drink and sex. The Correspondent had found the way to his heart, and if there had been any doubt as to its location, Abu Ali was holding a map. ‘I have always known the blood circulates within the body, because it will flow from a wound in the head just as easily as from a wound at the feet, but to see this… where did you get it?’

‘It is common knowledge where I come from,’ said the Correspondent. ‘The complete circulatory system of the human being.’

Abu Ali looked again at the maze of lines drawn in blue and red over the black, androgynous outline of an adult human. His eye traced the course of the wrist artery, and holding the diagram in one hand he felt for the beat of the blood in his own wrist with the other. Then his hand moved to his neck and again he felt his pulse.

‘And where is it you come from?’ he said. ‘Cathay?’