John Schettler - Meridian

He heard the voice speaking the words and at last he knew why he was dizzy, and why Maeve had the book, and why Paul was happily safe with Robert in the chamber of the Arch. It had all worked out fine. Only now he would face the truth that had been whispering from some dark corner of his soul ever since the first knock of the visitor on Nordhausen’s study door.

He was very tired, drained of all energy, but he managed to drag his pen over the notebook, wanting to write down the words in his head. They were not his words this time, but they spoke with the resonance of his innermost soul. He tried to scrawl them on the narrow page, but his hand moved with a languid slowness, and he could not write. So he just sat quietly and listened to the words in his mind.

It was the great bard himself, whispering in his ear. Shakespeare had something for everyone. He passed a fleeting moment, thinking how it would have been so wonderful to go back to the Globe as they first planned. Just to see the play, he thought; just to sit there quietly and watch the old master at the flood tide of his life. Then everything had changed when the news came over his car radio. Everything had changed.

Yes, he thought. They came back for me, but I wasn’t supposed to make it this far. I wasn’t supposed to be here… His mind grew quiet, but his hand still struggled to move, managing just one word on the page that captured the essence of Shakespeare’s verse. Would it stay there when I go, or vanish like the memory of my life? Would any of it stay put for very long?

He didn’t know.

“He’s OK!” Maeve was beaming as she greeted Paul with the warmth they deserved. “Kelly is fine!”

“Good man,” said Paul. He looked at Nordhausen where he was just coming around again after passing out on the floor. “What happened to Robert?”

“Oh, don’t worry. He was just disoriented from the retraction. Look, he’s coming to now.”

“I’ll vouch for that. If you open your eyes it’s, fabulous, but it will make you sick to your stomach when your finish the shift. I’m a bit light-headed myself, but I think I’ll be fine.”

Maeve was helping Nordhausen up onto one elbow. “Look at the two of you! You look like a pair of pups who’ve been out playing in the mud!”

“Well, it was raining. You try sneaking around in the Jordanian desert in the rain and mud for twelve hours and see what your laundry bill looks like.”

“Twelve hours?”

“At least that long,” Paul explained. “After we got to our proper coordinates, that is.”

“Kelly botched the numbers.” Nordhausen was getting his wits about him and returned to the same tired complaint he had been making all along. “He sent us half way to eternity!”

“That gave us quite a scare,” said Maeve. “He was rushing to key the final numbers and accidentally put something in as an exponent. You shifted by powers of ten.”

“Good lord!” Nordhausen’s eyes were focused now, and registering the proper touch of outrage. “That would account for the Ammonite fossil we found. We were probably way back in the—”

“In the late Cretaceous.” Maeve finished for him. “We got the readings and I nearly wet my pants. Kelly did something during the tachyon infusion, however. He sent a loop command through the system and got a double reading on your pattern signatures. Then he used one copy to move you back on target. The last one brought you both home.”

“Thank God for that,” said Paul. Then he pointed an accusing finger at Nordhausen. “Where the hell were you?”

“What? Well I was going to ask you the same thing. Weren’t you the one warning me about not stepping on the plants and such. Then you go wandering off and the next thing I know I’m face down in a pile of wet sand. What happened to you?”

“I came back to the fire and found you gone. Before I had time to get mad about it I must have shifted forward. I’m not sure where I ended up at first. The shift surprised me and I saw too much.”

“Did you open your eyes this time?” The professor had an excited look on his face.

“Too long,” said Paul. “It made me sick and dizzy. I was stumbling along in the desert and came upon the rail line. Then the Turks came up and—”

“The Turks!” Maeve gave him a wide-eyed look. “I’ll bet that was fun.”

“No shit!” Paul could still fee the hard clutch of the Colonel’s fingers on his throat. He spent a few moments recounting his ordeal in the officer’s coach, and his chance escape because of the loose buckle on the leather strap. “See what I mean, Robert? It was just a loose thread or two that ended up setting me free. Otherwise I might have been strung up for the Colonel’s pleasure the whole damn time. I can only imagine the effect on the man if I was still tied up when the retraction shift started.”

“Well, it all worked out because of one of your little push pins,” said the professor. Paul frowned at him for getting the terminology wrong again, but said nothing. “So tell me,” Nordhausen leaned forward, “how did you manage to sabotage the wires?”

“What?” Paul gave him a surprised look. “I was hoping you managed to do that. I never got near them.”

“What are you saying?” Nordhausen sat up straight. “I was close, you know. Very close. I even saw Lawrence! It was amazing. He came up from the rail line and set his exploder right by the little bush he talks about in Seven Pillars. I could barely contain myself. He seemed to have this aura around him—at least I thought I saw an odd corona about his form.”

“Little bush?” The professor never filled Paul in on all the details he crammed into his head before the mission started.

“Yes, there was a bush where he was planning to hide the ends of the wire so he could get to them easily when the train came.” He told the story of his encounter with the two Arabs in the desert, and how he stole away in the early dawn to see what he could do on his own. “I gave them the slip,” he beamed, “and I swear, I was within thirty yards of that bush when everything started to get fuzzy on me. The final retraction must have pulled me out, but I never touched the exploder, or the wire for that matter. I was hoping you would finish the job, Paul.”

“I wish I could take credit, but I never got anywhere near the wires either.” They both looked at Maeve, hoping she would produce the answer for them.

“Well,” she said, “this confirms my argument about wandering around in history, doesn’t it. Who knows what you actually did to change things, but you did something. It could have been anything at all. We may never know in the end.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Nordhausen. I’ve studied history for decades and I’ve often remarked how much of it just seems to happen on its own. Oh yes, the kings and princes and generals and emperors thought they had it all firmly in hand. In the end, however, they were doing little more than blundering about, just as we were. In fact, Lawrence expressed the same feeling about the writing of his book. How did he say it? ‘Things happen, and we do our best to keep in the saddle.’ Those were the words of one of your Prime Movers, Paul.”

“Doesn’t sound very comforting, does it?” Paul scratched the back of his head. “The notion that we change things unknowingly, that history turns on the slightest whim, is unnerving. Now do you know why I was so concerned about contamination?”