John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“Immaculate,” said Kelly. “I can have the first Spook Job set up in ten minutes.”

A pulse of anxiety coursed through Paul as he realized what he was about to do. That inscription on the shrine of Athena in Sais returned to his mind with the edge of a warning: ” I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.”

He was about to lift Time’s veil again, and stare into her eyes, over 1300 hundred years in the past. What would he see there?

“I guess I should get down to the Arch then,” he said, and the two men shook hands briefly. “You sure about the Spook Job now?”

“I’ll give you fifteen seconds—you’ll be in and out. Be sure to close your eyes during the shift so you can minimize the nausea. When you feel your feet on solid ground again, you’ll have about another ten seconds to have a quick look around. How we doing on fuel?”

“The particle integrity in the quantum matrix seems very stable,” said Paul.

“Great, but I was thinking about the generators. Our first setup man has been pitching two innings now.”

“I think we can get another inning out of this one,” said Paul. Fuel reading on that generator is about 30%. Number two is ready on standby using power from the system, so if you need it you can probably get plenty of juice in just a few seconds. But this is just a Spook Job, a quick in and out. You won’t need more than eighty or ninety percent of full power on the shift.”

“No problemo,” said Kelly. “We’ll see you back here in about twenty minutes then.”

“Right,” said Paul, but the look they gave each other spoke to the grave uncertainty still inherent in this technology. Paul imagined they felt a bit like the Wright brothers on that cold day in December of 1903 when they made the first powered flight. The thought that the mission might come crashing down around them like a rickety bi-plane still plagued him. There had already been many mishaps over these first three missions, though he comforted himself with the thought that, in spite of it all, they were all still here in one piece, alive and well.

He said his farewells to Maeve and Robert. “You’re on deck,” he said clapping Robert by the shoulder. “If this doesn’t look good we may have to recalculate the physical location for another look, but Kelly says he can do that right here in the system. He won’t need the Golem cloud again to nudge us a kilometer or so for another look.”

He gave them both parting hugs and went down to the Arch. When the elevator opened he could see the strange phosphorescent glow dead ahead, illuminating the thick event horizon line. Kelly was on the intercom.

“OK, I’m ramping up the power to ninety percent ,” he heard him say. There was an odd echo in his voice . “Get on the ready line for a portrait…”

He was referring to the pattern signature the system would take of Paul’s mass. Something like an MRI, it would serve as a means of isolating him in the mass flux at the distant location in space-time. The data would be stored in the enormous memory bank to back up the signature in case of any power failures.

Paul stepped onto the yellow line and felt the turbines vibrating as the Arch spun up. The prickly sensation let him know he was being scanned for a pattern signature, and he could feel that same eerie charge one has when surrounded by static energy, a hair raising tickle that was the first caress of Mother Time.

“On my mark… Three… Two… One… GO!”

His heart leapt an extra beat and he took a single step forward, crossing the event horizon between this reality and another, eyes tightly closed, fists clenched with the stress of the moment. He could still perceive the whirling light show through his closed eyelids, and the awful roaring sound of a passing train drowned out his fearful pulse. The Arch howled like lost animal, resolving to a low growl. Then the queasy sensation of lightness swept over him, and he seemed to be floating, disembodied, a nameless spirit of the moaning winds of Time.

A moment later he felt gravity and solidity sweep over his slight frame and, as Kelly had advised, he waited until he could feel the firmness of ground beneath his feet before opening his eyes. The acrid smell of an ozone frost was still all around him, but he blinked, bleary eyed through the haze and stared with shock and wonder.

The seconds ticked off, each an eternity… Nine… Eight… Seven. Paul looked to his left, then quickly back to his right, squinting in what looked like a smoky fog. But he could clearly perceive the landscape about him, though still somewhat dazed and confused. Six… five… Four… What was wrong? By now he could also hear sounds, the faint call of a far away bird, the rush of wind past his headdress carrying with it the scent of freshly sodden earth, ripe and full. He looked this way and that, astounded. Three… Two… One…

There came a shudder, and the air around him seemed to ripple with a tinge of cobalt blue light, distorting the panorama of the landscape he was gaping at before him. The scene wavered like the glimmering sheen of a distant horizon, a false oasis in the desert of Time. Then the awful feeling of insubstantial lightness swept through his body again, and a strange sense that he was being pulled away. He shut his eyes tight when the roar of the Arch drowned out everything else.

“Three… Two… One…”

It was the voice of Kelly on the intercom again.

“And we’re secure with a solid pattern signature in the bay. Welcome home, Paul.”

Home, Paul…

Home….

Kelly looked over his shoulder at Robert and Maeve. “It was a good shift,” he said. “You two can go form the welcoming committee, while I ramp the power down.”

“Our pleasure,” said Maeve.

They were quickly through the great titanium metal pressure sealed door and into the long cylindrical tunnel, which angled ever more sharply into the depths of the hillside. The complex was buried deep underground, a precaution to help shield the environment against the strange effects that might be released should anything go wrong with the spin-out of the singularity. The tunnel led them to an elevator that would take them down to the Arch Bay. After the brief ride down they leapt through the doors, all smiles, and rushed to the Arch. Paul was there, but the look on his face clearly showed that something was very wrong. He seemed shocked and dismayed, a perplexed expression darkening his eyes.

“Problem,” he said quietly. “Big problem…”

“I manifested as expected,”said Paul, “but when I opened my eyes to have a look around there was nothing to see, no sign of either army, and no battle underway at all, at least as far as I could tell. It was hazy, but behind me I had a good view of that high ground where we thought the Arab camp would be located. The area was well wooded so I couldn’t see as far as I hoped, but there wasn’t a soul around. It was deathly quiet. Why, I remember hearing the call of a bird, far off but distinct. Yet not a whisper else. No war drums, horns, clashing of swords on shields, and definitely no sound of charging cavalry. That would have made an enormous din.”

“Then we must have the wrong location—something off in Kelly’s numbers again,” said Robert.

“Oh, no mister!” Kelly came quickly to this field of battle. “We were dead on. The system certifies that we hit the exact date and time you wanted, at the exact coordinates I entered. There was no programming error. I put Paul right where you told me to, so you must have had the wrong date.”