John Schettler - Meridian

Nordhausen snapped the book shut. “Great!” He was relieved to have the burden of making the exact call on the spatial coordinates removed from his shoulders. “You know it could have taken us months to discover that. Oh, we could have just picked a time and place in November of that year, but then we’d be right back in the same situation as with the Crusades. Where do we go? What do we do? Now we at least have a good fix on the where.” He came up short, meeting another obstacle in his thinking. “Lord, how are we going to manage this? We can’t just appear in the middle of the attack—or worse yet, on a moving train.”

“Train? Why would we want to be on the train?”

“Because that’s where Masaui is likely to be. It’s his fate that matters most here.”

Paul agreed with him at once. “Yes, then we have to board the train before it starts off on its journey. When we get to the Computer Library focus your research on finding us a good boarding point. We’ll need to configure the Arch to open a breaching point at a place where we won’t be noticed by the locals. Then we get on the train and it takes us out to Kilometer 172 for the raid.” He smiled. All we have to do is discover who this Masaui is and what we have to do about him.”

“That may be trickier than you think,” said Maeve. “You say this train is operated by the Ottoman Turks? Well, what would four English speaking passengers be doing aboard? We’ll need much more than appropriate clothing. We’ll need some sort of documentation to justify our presence on the train. For that matter, what about effects? We’ll need period specific money and who knows what else. The devil is in the details, you know. We could run into trouble right from the beginning if we don’t plan this correctly. Suppose we have trouble boarding the train?”

“We’ll have to work something out.”

“I’ll dig up everything I possibly can on the incident. But Maeve makes a good point. Suppose we do manage to slip onto the train unnoticed. Suppose we even manage to make the ride out to Kilometer 172 without any undue attention being paid to us. There’s still the matter of the raid.”

“Yes,” Kelly piped up from the driver’s seat. “I saw the damn movie! They weren’t taking prisoners on those raids.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Nordhausen chided him. “You can’t base your history on the dramatic portrayal of the movie.”

“Well he still makes a good point,” said Maeve. “It’s going to be dangerous. We’ll be riding on a train that will come under attack, and who knows what could happen.”

“I said it was going to be dangerous,” said Paul. “A far cry from sitting quietly in the Globe and watching Shakespeare. But whatever the risk, we have to try. The consequences of failing are just too great.”

“Outcomes and Consequences,” said Maeve, lapsing into thought for a moment. “God only knows what happens if the water hits the east coast in the morning. Whatever it was, it was enough to send them back here on a very risky mission. Perhaps it cost Graves his life. Are we prepared to risk the same?”

She let that sink in for a moment, and they all sat in silence. Kelly shifted the gears as they rounded the bend and entered the U.C. Berkeley campus. He was soon speeding toward the library and, as he drove, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He, of all people, wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Do we all have to take the risk?” His thought emerged.

“What?” Nordhausen looked up from his book.

“I mean… why do we all have to go? Doesn’t that just complicate matters for us on that end?”

“Well,” said Nordhausen, “I suppose there’s no reason for you and Maeve to come along. I’ll be needed for the history, of course, and if Paul would be so bold as to accompany me, then perhaps the two of us could handle it. Then Kelly could run numbers and work the Arch from this end, and Maeve could watch the variance factors and help program the retraction.”

“You can count on me, Robert.” Paul assured his friend he was willing to go.

“No, you don’t understand.” Kelly groped through his reasoning again. “I’m the one person here who is already supposed to be dead. Remember? I was… Well, I was just thinking that perhaps I should be the one to go. The rest of you stay here where it’s safe.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Paul moved to quash the idea at once. “Look Kelly, you may have a point. This whole notion of your death has really gotten to me. As I said earlier, we’re already off on some new Meridian now. Time is branching here in the Nexus Point. This is another life—not only for you, but for all of us. Whatever happens, I can’t let you take any unusual risks for a while. I couldn’t bear to loose you, buddy.”

“Nor I,” Maeve said quietly. She gave Kelly a lingering glance.

“Let’s everyone think this over while we run the numbers,” Paul suggested. “We’ll decide who goes and who stays later. In the meantime, we have to plan as if we were all going, Maeve. Work whatever magic you can at the Drama Department wardrobe. I know you’ll come up with something. Robert and I will work out the details.”

The SUV sped along Hearst Avenue to the North Gate of the University. Kelly squinted through the front windshield, looking for parking. He was fortunate to find something immediately and Nordhausen had the back door open in a moment, heedless of the rain. “Come on,” he shouted in at them. “Time and tide wait for no man!”

How appropriate, thought Dorland. He visualized the great swelling of the ocean as it hurtled west from Palma, fast leaving the shattered remnants of the Azores in its wake. They couldn’t save Bermuda, but the fate of the Eastern Seaboard was still riding in the whirlwind of time.

They made their way over the rain swept pavement past the Earth Sciences Building and the Memorial Glade until they reached the main library in the center of the campus. Thankfully, the lights were still on, and Paul started to lead them toward the entrance.

“Not that way,” Nordhausen called after him. “We’ll go in the back way. I have a pass key.”

Paul reversed his course, and the others followed until they reached a nondescript doorway in a sheltered alcove. The Professor fumbled with his wallet for a moment, extracting his pass key card to log in through the security gate. In a few moments they tramped inside, grateful to be out of the driving rain and cold. The moment of respite was a brief one, however, and they were soon animated by the urgency of their mission.

“Storm must have everyone hunkered down in the dorms,” said Nordhausen.

“That or the news,” said Dorland. He suddenly remembered it was also Memorial Day weekend, and the normal library traffic would be thinned out by the holiday. “I think our chances of finding an open computer terminal will be very good.”

“I’ll get right on it,” said Kelly, hastening off to find a terminal where he could interface his laptop with the Arion mainframe humming away in the lower level of the library. “Get me spatial data as soon as you can,” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran.

Nordhausen was already moving toward a catalog terminal to begin with his research queries. Paul and Maeve followed in his wake, still catching their breath from the rush across the campus grounds. Maeve caught the time on a wall clock. It was just after midnight.

“What about that costume run, Maeve?” Paul asked.

“Well, I need something more to go on than the date,” she replied. “Any ideas at this point, Robert?”

“Give me a few moments,” said the professor. “I’ll get Kelly his spatial numbers and then we can decide how we’re going to make our entry. God, I wish we had a week to plan this.”