John Schettler - Touchstone

“Amazing,” said Nordhausen. “And you have confirmation on all this?”

“We are relatively certain of the location, in spatial terms. And we know, for a fact, that both monuments did indeed have a hidden chamber beneath them. You’ve heard the pronouncement of Edgar Cayce. He claimed there was a hidden chamber beneath the western Sphinx, the one at Giza, that was hermetically sealed. He said it contained hidden knowledge of the history of the world, dating from a remote golden age the Egyptians called Zep Tepi . A remarkable man, mister Cayce. He was correct, of course—only he got the location wrong. The history chamber was hidden beneath the eastern Sphinx—which is long since gone. Now… does that sound like a clever place to hide a record of events—carved in stone—so a man might take a rubbing on papyrus, and carry it about in a completely unbreakable code? No modern man has ever set eyes on this second Sphinx. It is lost, a distant rumor whispered across the ages, yet it is as close, in practical terms, as the cellar of some unknowing peasant in the suburbs of Cairo.”

The silence in the room was a testament to the impact of LeGrand’s revelation. The professor could hardly believe it, yet he was torn between his natural skepticism and the desire to immediately plumb the depths of this new research. He was the first to voice the obvious conclusion, and the reason for LeGrand’s desperate visit.

“Then you mean for us to go there? You have the location?”

“You have numbers?” Kelly spoke next.

“We can give you the exact spatial location, and a good read on the temporal locus as well.” LeGrand smiled, convinced that his job of persuasion had been successful.

“A good read?” Kelly wasn’t happy. “It can take an Arion system days to crunch temporal coordinates. The farther back you go, the more processing time you need. We’ll be lucky to keep the Arch spinning for another two hours!”

“We took care of that for you. It was a bit of a task. The trick was not the calculations, but how to get them to you. I am deeply honored to present you this, Mr. Ramer.”

LeGrand reached into his cape pouch and produced something, a small shiny disk that Paul immediately recognized.

“I believe you called these things DVDs, am I correct?” LeGrand extended the jewel case to Kelly, handing him the disk.

“Where did you get that?” Paul seemed incredulous now.

“You know very well where we got it,” said LeGrand. “You and the professor were quite upset about it.”

“You mean you ran a mission to retrieve DVD media from our time?” Kelly voiced the obvious conclusion.

“That would have been easy,” LeGrand explained. “But it would have taken time and, as simple as it sounds, it would have been risky. So, we encrypted the data in the video stream of this disk when we found it—the one we already had.” His eyes flashed at Kelly now, with a knowing glance. “We timed everything to sync well with the computers of your age. Now all you have to do is play this DVD through your system control module, and the entire operation will be perfectly coordinated as the video plays itself out. It was really quite devious. The R & D people are to be complimented.”

“I don’t understand,” said Kelly.

“You will,” LeGrand said softly. “At least I hope you will.” His eyes softened as he spoke.

Paul looked up, a conclusion plan on his face. “It’s the DVD we placed in your memorial site, Kelly. That’s why the grave site was tampered with. The Assassins were on to your plan as well, and they were trying to get at the DVD to prevent its discovery. Am I right?”

“Close,” said LeGrand with a smile. “It may be that the Assassins have a clue to what we are about to attempt, but they had nothing to do with the incident at Mr. Ramer’s memorial. We did that. Our agent in place for this milieu was instructed to secure it at all costs. We had to be sure we got to the DVD first, you see. It caused a bit of a ripple in the Meridian, and yes, the danger to your friend was very real, but you and the professor fixed that by publishing the backup you had hidden here in the lab. We kept the original, and we encoded it with our mission parameters… And there you have it.” He pointed to the disk in Kelly’s hand.

They all lookedat the DVD. Paul remembered the moment when he first discovered it, while archiving data from the Palma mission. Watching Kelly working in the lab as he struggled to get the travelers back on target after the disastrous keystroke error that sent them to the late Cretaceous had brought a tear to his eye. He knew then that it would be the only fitting tribute he could offer at Kelly’s memorial.

“How far back is it,” he said. His eyes fixed on the disk. The prospect of another mission was daunting, but he knew they would have to try. Robert and Maeve had only just returned from Rosetta. He was the only other experienced traveler here with a quantum matrix signature on file in the system database. Kelly had never shifted using this equipment.

“A bit beyond the excursion to Rosetta,” said LeGrand. But not nearly as far back as your runabout after the KT event. Quite remarkable, if I may say.”

“How far,” Paul asked again, and his tone said get to the point without any uncertainty.

LeGrand heard the impatience, the urgency in Paul’s voice, and was suddenly very serious. “We make it 10,500 B.C…. or thereabouts.”

Maeve had an uncomfortable expression on her face. “Good then,” she said. “Are you ready, Monsieur?”

“What… Me?” LeGrand gave her a bemused smile. “Oh, I’d love to go,” he explained, “but it’s really quite impossible. I can’t pull a double shift, I’m afraid. Nothing has been programmed, and time is already waiting for me back home.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to some unseen future. “She won’t allow me to switch trains here. It’s out of the question.”

“Just as I suspected,” said Maeve unhappily. “So you want one of us to go in your place. You want the burden of all we might accomplish, and the blood, on our hands.”

“Really, Madame, must you be so gloomy?”

Nordhausen spoke up, tossing a new idea into the argument. “Why don’t you just raid the location of the site in your time? If you know where it is, just get together an assault team and storm the place.”

LeGrand stroked his chin. “You don’t understand,” he said. “We’re no longer in control of our time. They are! Besides, even if we could destroy the site in our time it would do us no good. The damage to the Meridian has already been done by then. No… The moment is now… the question is now . The other side has just moved a Pushpoint, something very old, and lost and utterly insignificant, save for its effect on the discovery of the Rosetta stone. We haven’t the time to find out where or how they accomplished that, so we came up with this counterstrategy as a last hope. You only get one chance, you know. It’s a bit like Judo. Your adversary makes an attack, and you must respond, then and there, and find the leverage to use his own energy against him. Soon the transformation will be complete, Paradox will have run its course, and we would be living in a nightmare world again—believe me, I know of what I speak.”

The look in his eyes revealed real fear now. “Islam will have spread the world over,” he said softly. “The West will be overthrown… everything, democracy, capitalism, the artwork, music, literature—remember what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamiyan? That was just an appetizer. They will tolerate no other religion but Islam… There is no God but God, and Allah is his name, and Mohamed is his prophet—over, final, done. You have no idea what it will be like. It’s not going to be a simple book burning raid here and there. Fahrenheit 451 is nothing compared to the destruction of our culture that will follow if Palma is allowed to re-occur. That’s what they did, you see. They’ve worked it so that Palma happens —just as it was supposed to. Oh, believe me, we’ve done our very best to prevent that. It’s been a real struggle, but we’ve held them at bay. Now the advantage conferred by their hieroglyphic code is just enough to give them the edge.”