petermaize

The Jubilee Machine Part XI

 

For the first time James had received an epistle from himself that he didn’t know was coming. That was exciting.

It had happened in the 1920’s.  James had checked into a hotel room in Bombay. It was early February, so the weather was crisp and refreshing. James loved the colonial experience—it suited him. So he was always partial to visiting any well-run part of the British empire.

And few places were more representative of the Empire than the Raj hotel, set on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, mere meters away from the Gateway to India, which had only gone up a few years prior to James’s arrival.

When he checked in, the scrupulously attired clerk at the front desk attended to him with all the deference and civility that only a colonial subject could muster. The porter bowed when he came to collect James’s bags—a huge Sikh with a moustache that extended several inches on either side of his face, and a pure white turban held snug by a single broach of jade.

As James turned toward the elevator, the clerk spoke.

“Pardon me, Dr. McPherson, but I have a letter for you.”

“A letter?”

James was puzzled, but reached out to accept the proffered envelope, heavy bond paper sealed with red sealing wax. He turned it over and saw his own, unmistakable handwriting.

To Dr. James McPherson

To be opened upon arrival.

“Thank you,” he nodded to the clerk, who bowed and turned away.

As soon as he was alone in in his room, James tore open the letter. Standing in the waning light of an Indian sunset he read the letter from himself.

 

Dear James,

 

Welcome to Bombay! Perhaps you know that this letter has been waiting for you, but I think not. I suspect that you were surprised to receive it, and if that is the case, then we have triumphed!

I say ‘we’, because you, standing in a hotel in one universe, have received an unexpected letter from me, who by now am exploring another century in a similar, but quite separate universe. This confirms all of our conjecture about the Alternate Set. We are now free to communicate, not only across time, but across universes.

Hope to hear from you soon, dear boy.

Surprise me.

 

James’s hand dropped to his side, still clutching the letter. The emotion frothed inside him. He had achieved his objective. His dreams had come true.

But James refused to savor his accomplishment for long.

There was work to do.

 

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Benton could not forget Bartholomew’s calm resolve and unwavering faith. His worldview was inexpressibly foreign to Benton’s own era. In Benton’s world, religious fundamentalists were targets of scorn and ridicule; their self-assured adherence to outmoded beliefs was perplexing and maddening to pragmatic atheists like himself.

But much of Bartholomew’s character was recognizable in the scientists and academics that Benton lived and worked with. The same single-mindedness and unswerving dedication that linked Bartholomew to his god also was evident in scientists like Badri or Ken.

Benton wondered if the obsessed and driven lab coats really had anything over the zealots in the wool cloaks. They might be right about the physical world, but the pettiness, selfishness, compulsion and irritability of the scientists stood in sharp contrast to the gentleness, thoughtfulness, humility and happiness of the man from Sidon.

Benton had seen some awful things since he had left his own time; this epoch was filled with unspeakable brutality and callousness. Yet he had never met anyone in any realm as well-adjusted and admirable as Bartholomew and his kinsmen.

And now Bartholomew was dead at the hands of the 3rd century’s superpower.

As he sat in his tiny room, Benton’s mind wandered from Bartholomew’s death to his next task. It was time to place the epistle.

He knew that anything he left now would be dug up in the 21^st century by members of Badri’s team before any of the jumps took place. The team had chosen the locations for the epistles several months before Benton’s jump. Any messages left at the sites by time travelers would have been found by then. Unless, of course, the effects of time had altered the epistle sites. Earthquake, fire, urban construction. Vandals. Any number of events could have covered over or laid bare the epistles during the ensuing centuries. Although Benton remained sure that he was the first jumper, subsequent jumpers could remove or replace epistles, especially if their motives weren’t benign.

He would have to find a good hiding place—one that only Badri would think of.

 

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One last time, members of the Cassandra team were present in the decelerator room. It was early Monday, before the university woke up from the weekend and security resumed its normal stringency. Badri and Ellen benefited from the lax security that would exist for just a few more hours. They fired up the decelerator and Ellen got ready. She had the last bit of the Cassandra team’s gold sewed into her robe, plus some of her own jewelry. Ellen also carried a handgun with an extra clip—20 bullets in all. She hoped she would only need one.

“You positive you want to do this?” Badri asked. He looked worn out, frayed. Ellen felt like reaching out to steady him; maybe to steady herself.

“Yes,” she replied. “I know you don’t share my belief in God, but let me tell you how I view this, and why it makes it easier to do what I have to do.”

She swallowed, suddenly emotional. Ellen paused, then continued with a steady voice.

“I believe Benton’s assertion that he found my body.”

She forged on without further emotion.

“Therefore, I believe it is God’s will that I must go to Jerusalem. If I choose not to—and I can, because of free will—I would be acting against God’s will, and playing with fate in a similar way as James. I’d be trying to control the future through my own actions.”

The viewpoint that gave Ellen the strength to carry out this mission only brought further dismay to Badri. He couldn’t believe how simplistic and misguided the girl had become. Such a far cry from the determined, no-nonsense genius he had hired. But the time for discussion had passed. Badri nodded.

“I am glad you have that sense of certainty, Ellen.” was all he said.

Ellen climbed into the decelerator. It was the first time she’d ever been inside it, and Badri had to help her find the correct position, tucked into a ball, grasping her ankles and balanced on the balls of her feet. He stood at the controls and paused before he set the sequence in motion. Badri thought now would be a good time to pray, if he believed in prayer. He assumed that’s what Ellen was doing, as she crouched inside the sphere. Badri sighed, and began the sequence.

 

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Benton found the epistle site just before dark. It was possible that something would already be buried there—left by one of his colleagues who had happened this way in another time, on another loop.

Benton started digging. From memory he knew that anything that had been left would be two feet under the ground, at least in this century.  In the 20^th century, they’d have to dig down more than 10 feet.

He saw a tiny piece of torn fabric in the dirt. Benton put down the shovel and moved the soil aside with his hands. The fragment unraveled, but more pieces became evident as his fingers clawed away the sandy soil. He felt something hard beneath the flimsy scraps of decaying wool. It was human flesh, hard and unnatural to the touch, but definitely a human limb. He began working faster, moving the soil away in large scoops. He’d found an arm, the left arm if the body was lying face up. He was breathing heavily as he brushed away dirt and small rocks. The torso was covered by the same garment, a simple coarse robe. Benton stopped for a moment. He knew the dead person’s face was just a few inches underground. He could easily reach it now. But he dreaded the thought of touching a corpse—and whose corpse it might be.

The winter sun was barely above the horizon, and a constant chill wind blew over him. Still, Benton was sweating profusely.

He gingerly scraped dirt away, gently feeling for the skin. He felt it. Slowly, painstakingly, he moved the dirt aside, as if it would be an offense to harm the body. Suddenly he stopped.

Most of the flesh had either disappeared or withered to a yellow leather. The teeth were bared in a macabre grin, since the lips had long since decomposed. But Benton wasn’t looking at the features of the rotting corpse. His eyes had been caught by a thin chain of gold, now lying in the vicinity of the dead woman’s left ear. It was the necklace Benton had given to Ellen before he left. The entwined flowers were still attached.

Benton got to his feet with difficulty. He was crying in convulsive bursts. Turning to the west he tilted his head and wailed at the sky.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

A lone woman on a dangerous road, Ellen was constantly aware of potential threats. Everyone she passed on the Stella Maris highway displayed curiosity, contempt or antagonism toward a woman traveling alone, but initially Ellen was not impeded. On the third day of her journey, she was finally attacked.

It happened shortly after mid-day on a long, lone stretch of road. Ellen was lost in her own thoughts, ambling along robotically, making her way slowly to Capernaum. High reeds grew along the road as it ran long and straight. Ellen should have been aware that this was a likely place for attacks. Bandits could see traffic along the road for a long way in both directions. A solo traveler—especially a woman—would become a victim and no one would hear her cries.

Ellen had just reached into her satchel for one of the figs that she had been munching, when a man raced from the bushes on her right. Ellen saw the motion and turned. The man ran toward her, holding a knife in one hand, blade sharp and menacing. His head was uncovered, so Ellen could see that he had very long hair and a short, trimmed beard. He was intent as he raced toward her, but said nothing.

Ellen jumped back reflexively when she first saw him, then for a moment was frozen in panic as the man covered the few paces from the reeds to the middle of the road. He bore down on her, blade outstretched. In an instant she assessed that he didn’t intend to stab her; if he was, he’d be holding the knife differently, cocked to plunge the blade into her. He was almost on her when Ellen turned and ran. For the first time the man made a sound, a simple, guttural, “Ai!”

Ellen ran down the road, feeling for the small can of mace she kept in the satchel. She’d expected trouble, and this was an effective weapon. The man quickly caught up with her, but just as he reached for her, Ellen spun around and sent a blast of mace into his face.

The bandit screamed, a loud howl of pain and surprise. He maintained a grip on the knife, but raised his other hand to his face. As Ellen backed away, she saw two more men emerge from the reeds. They stood at the edge of the road, watching their partner writhe in pain. They did not move any closer.

“You want some, too?” Ellen bellowed in English, brandishing the spray can. The men took a step back. Ellen realized she had spoken in English. She tried to think of a suitable Aramaic phrase, but decided against it. Instead, she stepped slowly backward down the road, spray can aloft, as the blinded bandit stumbled back to his comrades. They retreated together into the reeds.

A few minutes later Ellen was on her knees, sobbing.

“God, I can’t take this. I am so scared, and so alone. I know I might die, but I feel so helpless and afraid. Give me strength. Please give me strength.”

She was under a tree. The sun shone brightly through the leaves. Ellen’s tears fell in the dust.

“Please help me make it to Jerusalem.”

 

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Badri sat quietly in his apartment, allowing the room to dim slowly around him.

In a few hours he would be summoned to meet with Chester Mellon. Mellon would ask him about reports that his staff had been conducting unauthorized tests with the decelerator. He’d ask what they were using it for.

Badri sighed. Even when he told Mellon the truth, the buttoned-down academic wouldn’t believe it. He was the kind of scientist who could spend years repeating the same experiments with fruit flies, checking the data, looking for slight aberrations. He couldn’t conceive of a team of researchers being so reckless, so undisciplined, as to undertake a life-threatening experiment without methodically and carefully completing the previous steps.

But as the days wore on and Mellon’s own researchers examined the decelerator, they would find proof that large masses—the size of humans—had moved through the decelerator. They would check the coordinates in the computer drives, and might even repeat some of the jumps with small, nonliving payloads. Eventually they would confirm the unthinkable: that Badri Singh’s team had traveled back in time.

And then slowly it would dawn on Mellon and his staff that most of Badri’s team was now unaccounted for. Indeed, only Badri remained on the campus. The others would never be seen again.

What would the eventual outcome be? Badri assumed he would be charged with a crime, imprisoned and kept largely incommunicado for a long time. No doubt Mellon, the university and the government would want to keep this situation very quiet. But Badri was sure that his career, dreams and life had been irrevocably shattered.

But that was not what was on Badri Singh’s mind as he sighed and got up to get himself a glass of water. It was not his future that mattered.

It was the past. Badri had lost several staff to the past, and one of his colleagues was now running amok in it, in an insane effort to become master of his own universe. Badri slowly sipped the water, standing at his kitchen sink. He shook his head sadly.

There was no longer anything that he could do to stop James. The decelerator was shut down. No one would travel in time again—certainly not anyone who knew what was happening. So James was now free to commute between universes of his own creation, performing his malicious tricks. He had achieved his goal. James had won. No one could stop him.