John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“Damn,” said Nordhausen… “Then we’ll never know what the Abbot did, or what Odo did to change this battle. We’ll never have anything more than an assumption, an educated guess.”

“History is written by the victors and the gray priesthood of scribes they keep,” said Paul. “I’d say most of everything that ever really happened remains unknown. All we hear about is what the local powers that be decided to write down. And, as we have seen, it can often have many interpretations.”

Nordhausen knew this as well, perhaps better than any of them. He had been a member of that gray priesthood himself, devoting most of his life to the study of history, ancient languages, and long forgotten cultures. He sighed, imagining Odo where he must have sat that day, restless at the edge of the woods where his horsemen waited in reserve.

“Well, we did it,” he said again with great relief. “Or the Abbot did it, or Odo did it in the end! The only thing that matters is that the Franks win the battle. That should change everything back again, right?”

Kelly was watching the chart, noting the progression of green. It had been stuck so long on the year 732, but was now bleeding into the yellow and migrating down the Meridian. “Things are looking much better,” he said. “I think Charles is going to have his grandson Charlemagne after all!”

“Then we get it all back?” said Robert. “Christendom prevails? Columbus discovers America? We get a city called San Francisco here?”

Kelly watched as the weight of opinion from the Golem searches registered on his screen and, as he moved right to scan the centuries, the line returned to a comforting warm green, deepening in color as it went. “Looks like smooth sailing,” he said. “The Renaissance, the Reformation… It’s all clearing up. We own it all again, the good and the bad. We’ve still got Shakespeare, but Hitler shows up as well. The whole cast of characters is safe behind the curtain of history.”

“How much fuel do we have left?” asked Paul.

“What?” Kelly looked at him. “Well it looks like we’ve just got that last bit you fed into the number one backup generator. But what difference does it make now?”

“Because we still have one little problem to solve,” Paul said quietly.

Robert looked at him, unhappy. “Oh, don’t start brooding over the physics, Paul,” he said. “Give it a rest! We should go out and celebrate!”

“Oh?” said Paul flatly. “Go out where? Have you forgotten the world we came from when we arrived here last night, Robert?”

The professor frowned. “You mean to say… You’re saying—”

“Palma,” Paul finished, looking at Maeve now. “What we’ve accomplished here hasn’t changed anything on that score at all. We merely prevented the changes we saw forming in the Golem reports concerning Tours. The Heisenberg Wave emerging as a result of the Tours interventions just dissipated, that’s all. We stopped the change from rippling forward on the Meridian, but we’ve done nothing about Palma, and that means that in about an hour…” He looked at Kelly, who turned from his monitor with sudden realization.

“Crap,” he said eloquently. “I don’t have a ticket to this show.” He looked at Maeve, more worried for her than he seemed for himself. She averted her eyes, thinking.

Robert gave him a deflated look. “Paradox? But I thought you said Palma didn’t matter anymore.”

”In the face of the Grand Transformation at Tours that was true,” said Paul. “We’ve settled accounts on that matter, but that will still leave us with Palma here on this Meridian. We’ve done nothing to reverse that. The only thing different now is that we have Kelly back.”

“Yes, but for how long?” said Robert. “He was supposed to die if Palma happens. There’s no place in this Meridian for him now. Sorry, Kelly. Damn it Paul, I warned you about this!”

“Calm down, Robert,” Paul placated the professor. “What you say may be correct,” he went on. “But perhaps not. We’re assuming Kelly was essential to preventing Palma because the action we took on that first mission needed his participation to succeed. Mr. Graves came back to prevent his accident, and our team therefore remained intact. Instead of mourning Kelly, and settling for my little robotic probe later that night, we resolved to do something about Palma. And since we could do something about it with the Arch at our disposal, we entered one of those tunnels I told you about earlier. We created an Absolute Certainty with the combined force of our will power. Yet it’s now quite possible that the Assassins have found some other way to instigate and carry off the attack that caused the Cumbre Vieja volcano to erupt and collapse into the sea.”

“They were counter-operating!” Maeve was quick to grasp at any straw that might mean Kelly’s life was still viable here, though her inner judgment was in a real struggle now with her love. But Paul was quick to reinforce her.

“Yes, Maeve,” and we have yet to discover what it is they may have done to re-instate Palma. Their operation may have had nothing whatsoever to do with Ra’id Husan Al Din this time, which means our little visit with Lawrence of Arabia would have been rendered entirely null. We were trying to reverse Palma by eliminating the terrorist from the Meridian—striking at his ancestor, Mousaui. But if the Assassins have found some other way to collapse that volcano, some other nefarious outcast we’ve yet to learn about, all that is meaningless. In that case Kelly would not be involved either, nor would he be exposed to Paradox. We’re on another Meridian now if this is true. The only fact we have is that Palma happened. That could mean that Kelly’s death prevented our intervention, but it could also have happened as a result of an entirely new operation run by the Assassins. Look how complex this last mission was!”

“Then why are we wasting time here congratulating ourselves?” Robert waved his arm. “We’ve got to finish the job. How much longer can we keep the Arch spinning?”

“Do you realize what you’re saying?” said Maeve. “It took us six hours, multiple time shifts, and considerable help from god knows when to execute our first intervention against Palma. And look at what we just went through with this mission.”

“I hate to say it,” said Paul, “but I’m afraid she’s correct. We’ll need research, fuel, and time to plan a counter-operation against Palma now. I don’t think we’ll be receiving any more apples with notes in them either. If what the Abbot says is true, our allies in the future are having a rough time of it there. We’ve prevented the catastrophe a defeat at Tours would have unleashed, but the Order is still operating under the negative effects of Palma. We’ve all been at this for hours, with little sleep or food, and on top of that we’re all suffering residual effects of time shift disorientation.”

“Then what are you saying, that we do nothing?” The professor was still flush with his victory at Tours, and ready for battle.

“I’m saying we’ve done all we can for the moment,” said Paul.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to second that,” said Kelly. “The singularity has gone into a severe wobble pattern now. It’s dissipating. I can’t hold the spin. It will be all I can do to use the remaining power we have to assure a safe closure. Let’s face it, people, we aren’t doing any more Time travel this morning. We’ve reached the end of our resources here, and we’ll just have to stand and face the day—however it manifests out there after we shut things down.”

Nordhausen wanted to argue it further, but the lack of reliable quantum fuel was his undoing. Even if they somehow managed to isolate a new variation in the Meridian that could be responsible for Palma, and assuming they could coax the Golem supercloud to produce accurate calculations for a mission, they were out of quantum fuel, not to mention plain old petroleum. That thought took him back to his earlier argument with Paul when they were in the City having dinner in Chinatown.