John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

Kelly cleared his throat, noticeably.

“Except Mr. Ramer here,” Paul corrected himself quickly.

“Well it could mean Ramer and Nordhausen,” said the professor. “The both of us.” The look on his face was somewhat squeamish, and he seemed to be looking for allies in an ever closing circle of foes.

“I doubt that,” said Paul. “It looks like an invitation to take a trip through the Arch. But where indeed? Noticing Robert’s discomfiture, he chided him a bit. “Are you telling me you don’t want to go with that sad face?”

Maeve jumped right in. “The man who’s become famous for unauthorized use of the Arch for personal business!”

“Now, now… We have no idea what that note means,” said Robert, increasingly leery. “Why, we have no idea who even sent it! Suppose it’s from the Assassins, and they’re inviting me to a lynching party or some other mischief?”

“Not possible,” said Paul. “You heard Rantgar explain it. They can’t shift anything into our Arch. The two systems are incompatible.”

“Well suppose they’ve gotten hold of one of the Order’s Arch complexes in the future. That’s entirely possible, yes?” He looked from one to the other, but was seeing no second to his proposal.

“And how would they know about the apple?” said Paul. “The Order didn’t even know about it until we told Rantgar, and he seemed to get a kick out of it. No, my guess is that this was back fed on the shift stream using a narrow emission bandwidth before the continuum closed.”

Deflated, Nordhausen shrugged and steeled himself to the possibility that he would have to make another Time jump. “Very well then,” he said grudgingly. “But you haven’t the slightest inkling of where I’m to go?”

“I think we may have an answer soon,” said Kelly. “I just discovered that my missing Golems, aren’t really gone. They seem to be very, very busy right now. I did a little hacking and was able to scan the hard drive of an unsecured computer running my Golem software. The program is there, and its running, but in a kind of null state where it will not respond to outside commands. And it’s using quite a bit of the local CPU capacity as well. Whatever it’s doing, it’s working very hard on something.”

“It must be related to the Battle of Tours somehow,” said Paul. “It’s clear on our monitors that the line of variation has been cured all through the years 705 to 732. But it still hung up at Tours. You say Abdul Rahman remains victorious, so there was something we missed, or were just unable to know at all at our point in the Meridian—something they may be privy to given their vantage point in the future.”

“Well then they should have the decency to just send us a FAX or something,” Robert complained. “An email would do just as well. Rantgar said they could get information through the Palma Shadow. Why all the drama?”

“I think this shifted in from the past, Robert. What do you make of this parchment?”

Paul handed Robert the note, and the professor studied it closely. “Freshly inked, and much too clean, he said. This would be thought of as a fraud if I tried to pass it off as an 8th century artifact today. But then again, this is probably what it looked like freshly written on clean parchment back then. But it still doesn’t answer my question. If they can get information through, why don’t they just ring us up on the telephone?” He folded his arms, frowning.

“They’re playing it safe,” said Paul. “Any electronic transmission could be intercepted in the resonance. This is a low tech approach that is more secure. It got our attention, didn’t it?”

“Hello…” Kelly was looking at his console monitors again. “And this is certainly getting my attention. Look here, Pablo. The missing Golems have suddenly reappeared on the network and they are sending a large block of data—”

“To the breaching module,” Paul finished.

“And look at this!” Kelly pointed to the screen and saw a chronometer had appeared in a popup window and was displaying a time countdown. It began at ten minutes and the numbers continued to diminish as he pointed.

“That has to be our launch time,” said Maeve.

They all looked at Robert.

The professor was looking over the rim of his reading glasses, from one to another, still looking like a scholarly monk in his cassock, the hood thrown back and drooping on his back. He took off his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Very well,” he sighed. “A few hours ago I was arguing with Maeve that I should be the one to go, but that brief look at the landscape of 8th century Gaul has dampened my enthusiasm for a re-visit to the dark ages. Not to worry,” he said, standing up and fussing with the prayer beads Maeve had slung on his waist sash. “I’m well and good, and… Well I suppose I’d best be getting on down to the Arch.”

Paul gave him a smile, then a firm hug. “Go with God, professor. I hope you don’t have to murder anyone. I can tell you. It’s a most uncomfortable experience.”

“Anything in your pockets?” Maeve gave him a suspicious look as she finished her hug. After what Paul has secreted away she was being a little more careful.

“Not a thing, Madame,” said Robert.

Kelly got up and embraced him roundly. “Hey, he said I was in the damn sphinx for months on that mission. But you come home soon now. We’ll be right here waiting.”

They were walking him towards the heavy security door. “You’re certain you have the fuel and all,” he asked sheepishly as he shuffled along with them.

“I’m going to be right on that final backup generator in case we need it,” said Paul. “There’s at least an hour’s worth of gas in that tank now, don’t worry.”

“What about the quantum fuel,” Nordhausen craned his neck, looking over his shoulder at the quantum matrix station as they passed it. “Will you be taking a double pattern of me as well?”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Paul. “But if anything happens you’ll know how to reach us,” he smiled, “because we’ll be scouring the history from the moment you shift. If you can get to a safe place, just drop us a note.”

“Yeah,” said Kelly with a wink. “Just send us a hieroglyphic or two!”

“And by all means stay put!” Maeve admonished him. “Don’t go wandering about.” She jabbed him with a firm finger.

“But what if I manifest in a muddy field?”

“Surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves?” Maeve had the apple they received, and handed it to him. “Give this to them—and then get yourself to a safe place, OK? Just remember your entry point. You’ll know what to do.”

“Well I haven’t a clue!” said Nordhausen.

“It’s an invitation,” she finished. “You’ll probably have company real soon. Fear not.”

The time was counting down through seven minutes and they let him go, through the great titanium door and down into the bowels of the Berkley Hills to shift into infinity.

Back at the monitors Paul leaned in to watch Kelly on the shift station. His ears were still ringing from that clanging bell in the chapel tower, and the haunting echo still bothered him. Thoughts of what he had done plagued him, but he pushed them out of his mind, trying to focus on the moment. “Will we be able to see where he goes on these readouts?”

“It looks like a normal block of breaching data. The checksums are perfect,” said Kelly. “Yes, we should get his target in space-time just after data goes live. I better feed the turbines some gasoline and rev this baby up again. I hope the singularity can take this strain, Paul.”

He dialed up the power, pleased that everything seemed to be going smoothly. “But Robert had some justification to be worried,” he said. “The quantum fuel is the issue now. The singularity has developed a small wobble. It will still open the continuum, but it’s a sign the process is decaying. I’m not sure how long we’re going to be able to hold it steady, and if it disintegrates we won’t be able to bring him home until we regenerate.”