John Schettler - Touchstone

“Hell, there’s no time for that. Just yank one out of one of the other consoles. No—not the history module. Try that one.” Kelly was pointing at an empty workstation and Paul rushed over, unplugging the keyboard in a quiet rush.

By the time he had the board out and over to Kelly’s console he saw that his friend was just staring at the chronometer in disbelief. He immediately knew that this was much more than a simple accident. Something was wrong.

The light gave way to a cold mist that seemed charged with a scintillating static. Maeve stumbled forward, pulled along by Nordhausen and yet clutching to his hand as though her life depended on it. They were over the line and into the Arch. The scene around them disintegrated into darkness as she pressed her eyes tightly closed. Then the cold… so deep and penetrating that she felt as though she could never be warm again. It was the cold of infinity, of annihilation, a graveyard chill that sent uncontrollable shivers through her. For one wild moment she could not feel the ground under her feet. It was as if she was suspended in the air, feather light, or falling in an uncontrolled rush to oblivion. Then her feet felt the substance of something firm again, and the pull of gravity returned. She fell onto her knees, deeply shaken, and the beaded purse that had been dangling from her shoulder, slipped to the floor. The odor of ozone came to her, along with a sickly sweet smell that she could not quite place.

Nordhausen still had hold of her hand, his grip tight and firm. She opened her eyes to see that they were both enveloped in a gray fog, infused with a sheen of pale green light that was accented by faint sparks, like fireflies on a misty night. Tremors of cold still rippled through her body, but they grew still, and the warmth of life returned to her—a feeling of substance and presence, and weight.

“What?” The professor’s voice quavered out, and she looked to see the excitement in his eyes giving way to puzzlement. “Where are we?” He was looking around in amazement. “Now what has Kelly done this time?”

Presence of mind had finally returned to her, and she remembered who she was, and what she was about. Maeve struggled up, aided by Nordhausen, and the two of them stood gaping at their surroundings. This was not the road to Alexandria. They were not in the quiet of the early dawn near Abukir Bay, and worse yet, as the seconds passed, interminably long, she realized that they were not being pulled back to their own time. A Spook Job was just a quiet manifestation in the target zone and then return—or at least it was supposed to be. This was only the second time they had tried such an operation. If it worked as Kelly planned, they should be standing in the Arch corridor by now, safe in the year 2010. But instead they were gawking at the simple furnishings of a small room. The dull brown walls were shaped of dried earth with embedded stone, and hung with brightly colored tapestries. A thick rug covered the floor, with an ornate pattern in a stylized geometric design. Arabic, she thought, her mind filling in the blanks as they struggled to understand what had happened to them.

“He’s done it again,” Nordhausen was saying, but Maeve was still taking in her surroundings. Her eyes fixed on a low wood table, a few feet in front of them. There was a small tea pot of polished brass sitting on the table. Tiny curls of steam emerged from the curved spout, spiraling up into the dissipating fog about them. A simple porcelain cup was tilted on its side, the brown stain of freshly spilled tea still wetting the lacquered table top. She noted the simple decoration painted on the cup, a star embraced by a sickle moon and surrounded by Arabic writing.

“Damn the man,” said Nordhausen, “he’s botched the numbers again, I tell you! Now where in blazes are we?”

Maeve was still speechless as she watched the professor move cautiously toward a single open window on the far wall. It was clear that the shift had failed. They were not on their intended coordinates, at least not spatially. God only knew where they were, or when, but Nordhausen was already getting far too curious. She forced herself to speak, her voice dry in her throat.

“Stay put, Robert…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just have a look out the window. What is this place?”

Maeve’s mind began to piece things together, with one thought stumbling after another. It was daylight. The warm light was streaming through the single open window where Nordhausen was now standing, and gleaming off the polished buttons of his blue waistcoat. The spilled teacup pulled at her, suggesting that someone had been in this very room only a moment before. It was a single person, for there was only one cup. Perhaps he was sitting down for morning tea when the two of them began to manifest. Lord, what a fright that man would have had! Spook Job was a good handle for a mission like this, but something was clearly wrong. She looked about, noticing a half open door behind them, but there was no sign of anyone else. The poor fellow must have been frightened out of his mind.

She took in more details of the room… The rug was a simple prayer rug, undoubtedly oriented toward Mecca, wherever that was. There was a wash bowl, half filled with water to one side of the table, and a book lay upside down on the floor. She stooped to see that it was a copy of the Holy Koran.

“Lord,” she whispered… “Where are we? What have we done?”

Nordhausen turned from the window. “You can blame this on Kelly,” he accused. “He’s mucked up the breaching numbers again. It’s daylight, so the temporal shift is off as well. Looks like a city of some kind out there.” He gestured to the open window. “Damn quiet. Must be early morning.” His eye fell on a weapon set by the window, and he reached for it out of curiosity.

Maeve’s eyes widened. “Put that down,” she hissed in a strained whisper.

“What? No harm, Maeve. I’ll just have a quick look. Maybe it will give us a clue as to the time. At least we’re not in the Cretaceous. Whatever that rogue has done, it may only be a minor error. Look here, a nice strait barreled matchlock musket—fully primed and ready to fire…”

“Robert! Put that down . We mustn’t tamper with anything in this Milieu. It’s plain that something has gone wrong. Kelly will be trying to pull us out as quickly as he can. Besides…” She looked over her shoulder at the half open door. “I think someone was here when we came through.”

“What?”

“Look at the tea setting. The pot is still hot and the cup has been spilled.”

“Right you are,” said Nordhausen as he took note of the scene. “Well let’s hope we at least made it to Egypt.” His mind jumped ahead to a new assessment. “These pressed mud walls would be very typical of construction at the target date, and if this musket is any indication of the time I’d say this was a 19th Century weapon. Maybe we’re not too far off the mark after all.”

The quiet of the early morning was broken by a thrumming sound in the distance. It quickly resolved to a rhythmic beat, and Nordhausen edged to the window again, his head cocked to one side as he listened. The sound grew ever louder, accented with a steady tum, tum, tum of a drum beat. He leaned out, taking in a narrow cobbled street, and saw that a column of uniformed men were marching up the alley. They were led by an officer with a brightly colored plume on his cap and a drawn sword. Behind him came a group of twenty men at arms, all in blue, their long muskets shouldered in smart order, their faces stern and grim, as though set in stone.

A group of riders followed, and the professor squinted at the man in the lead, sitting bolt upright on a white stallion. He was clearly the officer in charge. Every aspect of his being shouted authority, with one gloved hand resting on the pommel of his saddle and the other grasping the rein with a sure and steady grip. The gold tasseled shoulder pauldrons marked him with high rank, though he wore no headgear. A curled tress of dark hair fell on his wide forehead, and his eyes surveyed the narrow alley as the column came on. Nordhausen squinted, rubbing his eyes as he looked, as though trying to clear his vision. The man seemed suddenly obscured in a violet haze. He blinked, and looked again with an expression of recognition and surprise stretching his features.