John Schettler - Touchstone

The four primary team members were assembled in the lab. Nordhausen had taken off his wig and was still scratching the back of his head. Maeve had recovered from the retraction shift, a bit nauseous and disoriented, but feeling better by the minute. Kelly had a pot of hot coffee at the ready, and he was stirring a bit of cream into Maeve’s cup, hovering over her where she sat by the history console looking pale and tired.

After the elation of their safe return, and hugs all around, Robert was quick to break the news. He began talking about the discovery of the stone, trying to describe the new artifact that had been unearthed as best he could. He soon found words inadequate to the task and dragged Paul over to the Touchstone RAM bank where he retrieved an image of the stone from the data files and printed it out. Then he began to draw, carefully sketching from the his memory of the new find.

He presented Paul the drawing. “There,” he said, “Except all the Demotic and Greek in the image was covered with ancient hieroglyphics!” The two men hunched over the drawing, as if the answer to the dilemma might be found in the picture.

“You’re certain it looked like this?”

“Absolutely! Maeve will vouch for that.”

“How could this be?” Paul was still trying to see a clear line of reasoning to explain the change. “They would have to go back to the time the stone was originally made and then convince the makers to alter it by leaving out the Demotic and Greek script. Do you realize how difficult that intervention would be?”

“Yes,” said Nordhausen. “It was an established convention to display these proclamations in all three languages. The discovery of similar stones at Bubastis confirmed that in 2004. Perhaps they replaced the stone with another,” he suggested. “They knew exactly where to find it. Suppose they simply went back on some lonesome night and dug the original stone up.”

“You say it was twice the size of the original? That would mean they had to bring in an artifact weighing fifteen hundred kilos! I don’t think so. And what would they do with the original? You can’t transport an object of that size easily in the physical world, let alone through Time.”

”Why not? I went back and retrieved Lawrence’s manuscript of the Seven Pillars .” Robert caught himself too late. Paul looked at him, a dumbfounded expression on his face.

Maeve was suddenly making a remarkable recovery from the stupor of her Time shift. “You did what?” She was up off her chair, parasol still in hand, and advancing on the professor with bad intent. “When did this happen?”

Nordhausen looked from Paul to Maeve as she advanced, edging behind Paul’s chair to seek protection. “Alright… alright now. If you must know everything, I did it on that mission last July. You know, when I went to visit Reading Station. I wasn’t just sightseeing as I told you.”

“Damn you, Robert!” Maeve took a quick swipe at him with her parasol, scoring a glancing blow on his shoulder. He ducked behind Paul, flustered and embarrassed.

“It was the lost manuscript,” Nordhausen pleaded, “not the original. It was stolen on the train ride Lawrence took—”

“I knew that was what you were up to,” Maeve’s eyes narrowed, and she swiped at Robert again, the parasol rapping hard on the back of Paul’s chair as he dodged.

“Hey, take it easy,” Paul protested, but Maeve was angling for a better chance at getting the professor on the head.

“Kelly!” Robert yelled. “Do something! Stop that crazy woman before she runs me through with that thing.”

Kelly had a big grin on his face, and he simply folded his arms and smiled, leaning back in his chair as he struggled to suppress his laughter.

“I’ll show you who’s crazy,” Maeve lunged forward with the parasol, plugging the professor right in the belly with a hard jab. He yelped in protest, but then simply held up his hands in surrender.

“Alright, I give in. I did it, and I’ll never live down the shame. I was just a selfish man, hoping to rescue something from trash heap of history, and it all came down around me, to no good.”

Maeve was ready to give him one last jab, but she relented, plunking the parasol down on the floor with a hard thump and leaning on it heavily. There was a moment of strained silence, then Kelly burst out laughing.

“We knew you were after something,” he said. “Maeve did the follow-up research and narrowed things down. The only event that was even remotely significant was the loss of the manuscript. So, you actually found the darn thing, did you? And you mean to say you still have it?”

“Yes, yes, I confess. It’s stored in a vault in my study. I know—the consequences could be devastating. Suppose it was meant to be discovered by someone else—years from now—when we are all gone. I’ve had that in my belly ever since.”

“And you’ll get a lot more in your belly if you so much as think of another stunt like that again,” Maeve vented. “Next time I will run you through with this—or worse!”

Nordhausen passed a brief moment of terror, imagining the full brunt of Maeve’s anger unleashed upon him for his misadventures, though he knew he would deserve every agonizing second. He had been headstrong, and foolish, and he deceived his dearest friends at the same time. The whole weight of time seemed to fall on him now and he slumped against the console behind Paul’s chair, deflated and clearly upset with himself.

Maeve saw the expression on his face, but a gleam of mischief came to her eye as she looked at him.

“Do you know he tried to shoot Napoleon just now,” she said to Paul.

“What?” Paul looked at Robert, aghast.

“Now, see here, Maeve. I did no such thing!” The professor was trying to defend himself, his eye still fixed on the parasol.

“Oh, yes,” said Maeve, having her fun now. “Just after we manifested—before you moved us back on target. He waltzed right over, picked up a rifle, and he was aiming the damn thing out the window at Napoleon.”

“I was not!”

“I barely got to him in time.” Now Maeve smiled, unable to keep up the front of her anger, and satisfied that she had made her point with the professor.

Paul looked from one to the other, and Kelly was still laughing, holding his stomach as he rocked back in his swivel chair.

“Alright,” Nordhausen protested as he realized Maeve was playing out the moment for all it was worth. “Enough of this. You can think up some horror for me later, and I promise you I will submit to any punishment you decide to mete out. But the stone! We’ve got to figure this out! How could they pull off a switch like that? Could they have carved it elsewhere, at the target time, and then floated it to the site on the river?” The professor was trying to conceive the operation himself as he went along, filling in the gray with wild assumptions.

“Again,” said Paul, “what would they do with the original? It weighed 720 Kilos. You might get away with carrying some small object back on your person, like our literary thief here, but not an object the size of the Rosetta Stone. No… this is worse than we think,” he said.

Nordhausen waited, hanging on the unspoken conclusion that was evident in Paul’s voice. “Well?” he was unable to contain himself.

It was Maeve who spoke up now, her eyes fixed on Paul this time. “There’s been a transformation,” she said, matter of factly. “That’s why you pulled us out early; that’s why you won’t let the Arch spin down, isn’t it, Paul? You’re keeping the Nexus Point open for us here, because you know things have changed. Has anyone been outside this room since we returned? Does anyone have the slightest notion of what the world looks like out there?” There was an urgency in her voice, and an edge of fear.