John Schettler - Touchstone

“Yes!” said Nordhausen. “It was written on the stone… here, let me remember… ‘Through the ages now he comes to a mystery: one death gives birth, a great wind upon the face of the sea, in a place forever hidden where the lions roar: ‘mine is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.’ A Great wind upon the face of the sea: that must be the tsunami sequence generated by Palma!“

“A place forever hidden where the lions roar,” said Paul. “That has to be a reference to the Sphinx—or both of them.”

“Mine is yesterday, and I know tomorrow.” Nordhausen continued. “An obvious reference to the past, where they’ve hidden a record of all future events. But what does the first part mean?” He looked about, hoping to find the answer with one of the others.

“We believe it refers to Mr. Kelly,” said LeGrand matter of factly.

Kelly looked at him, confused? “Me?”

“I’m afraid so,” said LeGrand. “It was your death that prevented the others from acting to reverse Palma. ‘One death gives birth—to the whole of their dastardly plan, and the destruction of the entire Eastern Seaboard of this continent. That was what we sent Mr. Graves to undo—to prevent that one death—your death.”

He reached up to wipe the sheen of sweat from his brow. “But now they’ve found another lever,” he said. “It changes everything again. This last twist is fatal to our cause—unless we act here and now. We will be reduced to a bare handful of dissidents in our time, hiding out, constantly on the run, hounded into caves and hidden sanctuaries. Storm the site with an assault team? Try showing your white unshaven face in Old Cairo today, in the district known as Maadi , if you get the significance of that name, and see how you fare! Do you honestly think we could get to the place if this transformation takes effect? The Assassins have it completely encircled. The Fedayeen commandos guard it night and day. Their secret police are everywhere—or at least they will be if we don’t act to prevent them. From this moment forward they will begin to use the advantage they have gained. They’ll post a watch on the site, send agents all throughout the continuum to guard it.”

“Then won’t it be guarded now?” said Robert. “I mean, on this mission you have planned to the second Sphinx?”

“Perhaps,” LeGrand admitted, “but we’re targeting them just as they establish the place—a secret chamber beneath the Sphinx where their scribe will carve out the key Nexus Points in the whole of human history. That’s what they were using as a guideline. That’s why we could never figure out how they could still resist us when we destroyed the last of their Arch complexes in our time. They’re damn conniving—cunning beyond our ken. They used these Oklo reactions to build hidden transfer gates—they call them wells. We’ve only found the one thanks to you, at Wadi Rumm, but there have to be others, and we’ve no time to look for them now.”

“And what if we destroy this hidden chamber? That’s what you want us to do, correct?” Paul wanted to get a glimpse of the outcome should they decide to undertake the mission.

“If you can,” said LeGrand. “It’s underground, and we’ve enough information to formulate a possible plan of attack. We found it in their own literature… the hidden stream that carries the walkers to the chamber of Time. The whole place is underground, you see, but it’s very close to the Nile. That area has been a problem in Cairo for generations. The water is leeching through the limestone and migrating under the city. We did research—no time to go into it all, but they’re using a series of locks on the river—the underground stream. All it will take is a little nudge, just as it should. The Pushpoint is one of the levers that opens the locks. We’re certain of it.”

“And these locks existed that long ago?” Paul had an incredulous look on his face.

“Only one,” LeGrand confirmed. “The others were built over the long generation as the river intruded on the location of their site. That’s why we’re sure of the Pushpoint. There’s only one lock at this target date .”

Silence enfolded the room, broken only by the hum of the lab consoles.

“Very well,” said Paul, looking at Maeve. “The others have just returned. I’ll go.”

LeGrand smiled warmly. “Very noble. It is just what we would expect of you,” he said. “But I’m afraid that your preparation might take more time than we have.” He eyed the clock again.

“But there’s already a quantum signature for me in our database here.” Paul repeated the logic that had led him to volunteer. “And Robert and Maeve have only just returned. They’ll need time to recover.”

“All true,” said LeGrand, “but first we would have to re-calibrate your signature, and then merge the data with the mission parameters we have programmed on the disk. There would be changes and, as Mister Ramer would be quick to point out, that would take computer time—more than we can spare.”

Kelly looked at him, a realization dawning in his eyes. “Then it’s me you want,” he said matter of factly. “You already have my signature encoded on the DVD, don’t you.”

LeGrand nodded, his breath abated, waiting as he watched the others for any sign of protest. Paul could see that his hand was shaking a bit as he fingered the hem of his gray cloak.

“Let’s get started then,” said Kelly. “You’ll have to resample my signature when I’m exposed to the particle stream, but if I know my methods and procedures like I think I’m going to, you’ll have an algorithm already encoded on the DVD to handle the data merge.”

“Precisely,” said LeGrand, greatly relieved.

Kelly was already edging his swivel chair up to the control console, all business. Maeve had a pleading expression on her face, close to tears, but she said nothing. There was a tense silence in the room. Kelly was opening the jewel case to remove the DVD while he toggled system switches.

“I’ll clear the necessary RAM,” he said. “Paul, would you check on the particle infusion chamber? I’m worried about the quantum fuel situation. Robert, you can be useful if you would get with Mister LeGrand here and figure out what I’m supposed to do. I’ll be half an hour here setting this thing up, and that won’t leave me much time…”

He looked at Maeve, and saw the tear streaking her cheek, his own eyes glassy as he swallowed hard. “And would you come down to the Arch with me, love?” His voice broke as he spoke those last words.

Robert leaned in to Paul. “Will it really be that dangerous?”

Paul just looked at him. Then he took him by the arm, walking him away from the lab console. “It’s like this,” he said softly. “If he’s fails the mission, we’re all exposed to Paradox, and who knows what will happen when the Nexus dissipates here in a few hours.”

“And if he succeeds?”

“In that event it will be Kelly’s fate on the line. The transformation he works will begin over 12,000 years ago, and ripple forward. It’s very likely that events will stand as we see them now, and there will be no attack at Palma by Ra’id Husan al Din. Understand? He’ll be the one exposed to Paradox again, just as he was after that first mission.”

“But we’ll still have the DVD,” said Robert. “And we published the whole thing to the web. If that survives, what’s the problem?”

“The DVD has location data for Kelly to be pulled from the lab on May 28 th, 2010, at precisely 4:10 A.M. It’s September now, and he’ll be somewhere east of the Nile, in the year 10500 B.C.”

Robert’s eyes suddenly registered the dilemma. “Then the Order will just have to intervene again—like they did the last time. Don’t they have his coordinates on that DVD? I’ll speak to LeGrand!”