Arthur Clarke - Time’s Eye

“Day-Glo,” Bisesa muttered.

Ruddy said, “What did you say?”

“That has to be Sable. Shit, she’s heading for the temple—”

“The Eye of Marduk—”

“It’s what this has been all about. Come on!”

They ran after Sable down the ceremonial way. Worried-looking Macedonian soldiers rushed past them toward the incursion at the gate, and baffled, terrified Babylonian citizens cowered. Over their heads, Eyes hovered, like strings of CCTV cameras, impassive; Bisesa was shocked by how many there were.

Ruddy was first to the chamber of Marduk. The great Eye still hovered over its puddle of congealed gold. Sable stood before the Eye, panting, her hair disheveled over her Mongol armor, gazing up at a distorted reflection of herself. She raised a hand to touch the Eye.

Ruddy Kipling stepped forward. “Madam, get away from there, or—”

With a single movement she turned, raised a pistol, and shot him. In the ancient chamber the crack of the weapon was loud. Ruddy was hurled backward, slammed against the wall, and slumped to the floor.

Bisesa screamed, “Ruddy!”

Sable had raised the gun to Bisesa. “Don’t try it.”

Ruddy looked up helplessly at Bisesa, his broad brow dotted with sweat, his thick glasses spattered with the blood of strangers. He clutched his hip. Blood gushed from between his fingers. He grinned foolishly. “I’m shot.”

Bisesa longed to go to Ruddy. But she stood still and raised her hands. “Sable Jones.”

“My fame spreads.”

“Where’s Kolya?”

“Dead … Ah.” She smiled. “A thought occurs. The Mongols sounded the retreat. There was me thinking it was a coincidence. But you know what must have happened? Genghis Khan is dead, and his sons and brothers and generals are hurrying back for a quriltai to decide who gets the big prize. The Mongols have the social structure of a pack of chimpanzees. But, just like the chimps, when the alpha male falls all bets are off. And Kolya used that against them.” She shook her head. “You have to admire the scrawny little bastard. I wonder how he did it.” The gun in her hand never wavered.

Ruddy groaned.

Bisesa tried not to be distracted. “What do you want, Sable?”

“What do you think?” Sable jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “We could hear this thing’s signal from orbit. Whatever’s going on here, this is the key—to past, present and future—”

“To a new world.”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re right. I’ve been studying it.”

Sable’s eyes narrowed. “In that case you might be able to help me. What do you say? You’re either with me or against me.”

Bisesa looked directly at the Eye. She let her eyes open wider, and forced a smile. “Evidently it’s been expecting you.”

Sable turned her head. It was a simple trick, but Sable’s vanity had trapped her—and Bisesa had won a single half-second. It took one kick to shatter Sable’s wrist and get the gun out of her hand, another to bring her down.

Panting hard, she stood over the fallen cosmonaut. Bisesa thought she could smell her, a stink of milk and fat, like the Mongols she had fallen in with. “Sable, did you really think the Eye would care about you, and your petty ambitions? May you rot in hell.” She glared up at the Eye. “And you— have you seen enough? Is this what you wanted? Have we suffered enough for you? …”

“Bisesa.” It was a groan, barely formed as a word.

Bisesa ran to Ruddy.

Hephaistion was dead.

Alexander had won a great battle in almost impossible circumstances, in a new world, against a foe more than a thousand years more advanced. But in doing so he had lost his companion, his lover—his only true friend.

Alexander knew what was expected of him, at this moment. He would retire to his tent, and drink himself to oblivion. Or else he would refuse to drink or eat at all for days on end, until his family and companions feared for his health. Or he would order the construction of an impossibly grandiose memorial: perhaps a carving of a majestic lion, he thought idly.

Alexander decided he would do none of those things. He would grieve for Hephaistion in private, true. Perhaps he would order that all the horses in camp should have their manes and tails clipped. Homer told of how Achilles had shorn his horses in honor of his dead, beloved Patroclus; yes, that was how Alexander might mourn Hephaistion.

But for now there was too much to do.

He walked over the blood-soaked ground of the battlefield, and through the tents and buildings that housed the wounded. His advisers and companions fluttered anxiously at his heels—and his doctor, for Alexander had taken more than a few more blows himself. Many of the men were glad to see him, of course. Some boasted of what they had done in the battle, and Alexander listened patiently and, straight-faced, commended them on their valor. But others were sunk in shock. He had seen this before. They would sit numbly, or they would tell their petty stories over and over. The men would recover, as they always did, as would this bloodied ground, when the spring came and the grass grew again. But nothing could erase the anger and guilt of those who had survived where companions had fallen, as their King would never forget Hephaistion.

Ruddy lay back against the wall, arms limp, palms up, fingers curled. His small hands, coated in blood, looked like two crabs, she thought. Blood was gushing from a puncture wound, just below his left hip. “We’re seeing a lot of blood today, Bisesa.” He was still smiling.

“Yeah.” She dragged Curlex from her pocket, and tried jamming it in the hole. But the blood was still pumping. Sable’s shot seemed to have ruptured a femoral artery, one of the primary avenues by which blood reached the lower half of the body. There was no way she could move him—no transfusions she could give him, no casevac she could call in.

No time for sentiment: she had to treat Ruddy as a broken machine, a truck with the bonnet up, that she had to fix. She thought desperately. She began to rip open his trouser leg. “Try not to talk,” she said. “Everything will be fine.”

“As Casey would say, bullshit. ”

“Casey is a bad influence.”

“Tell me,” he whispered.

“What?”

“What becomes of me … Or would have.”

“No time, Ruddy.” Exposed, the wound gaped, a bloody crater from which crimson liquid still flowed. “Here, help me.” She got hold of his hands and pushed them against the wound, and she pressed herself, pushing her fingers into the hole up to the knuckle.

He squirmed, but he didn’t cry out. He seemed terribly pale. His blood was forming a lake beneath him on the floor of the temple, a mirror to the melted gold of the god. “There’s time for nothing else, Bisesa. Please.”

“You become loved,” she said, still working frantically. “The voice of a nation, of an age. You’re internationally famous too. Wealthy. You refuse honors, but they’re repeatedly offered to you. You help shape national life. You win a Nobel prize for literature. They will say of you that your voice is heard around the world whenever it drops a remark …”

“Ah.” He smiled and closed his eyes. She shifted her fingers. Blood spurted out, as strongly as ever, and he grunted. “All those books I will never write.”

“But they exist, Ruddy. They’re in my phone. Every last damn word.”

“There’s that, I suppose—even if it makes no logical sense if the author doesn’t survive to write them … And my family?”

Trying to staunch the flow this way was like trying to stop up a broken pipe by pushing down on it through a pillow. The only thing she could do, she knew, was to find the femoral artery and tie it off directly. “Ruddy, this will hurt like hell.” She dug her fingers into the wound and ripped it wider open.