The Basingstoke Chronicles (17 page)

"I saw it, too."

She stretched out her trembling hand.

I took it. My mind still reeled. The flowers' aroma now disgusted, sickened me.

With her other hand, the queen reached into a pocket of her cloak, but came out empty.
What possible memento could she wish to take from this dreadful place? Was the end of the
world not enough?

Like Orpheus, I sighed, and led her from a place of darkness. This paradise setting had
set the sun over my adventure. I'd never felt so homesick for Basingstoke Manor, and could not
wait to leave Apterona.

The waterfall hissed coldly as we circuited the lagoon. No one said a word. The guard
charged with guiding the queen took her from me. Each of us then trudged separately, solemnly,
over rock and grass.

Puma Pawq'ar took the queen's hand as we reached the wider course of the Kuti.
"Mother, it is time. When we return, I shall be about our promised business."

She replied softly, "I know."

"But you must convince father, and quickly."

"I shall... But I fear your business will take more time than we have left. Perhaps it is fate
that after waiting generations, we should have to hurry our sails to escape a flood."

"Fate indeed, mother."

This exchange pricked my curiosity. Firstly, it confirmed Chasca Quilla
was
an
accomplice to the hiding of the great fleet. Secondly, she had used the word
flood
, when
my own premonition had clearly revealed the opposite.

"Excuse me," I said, "what exactly did your Majesty see of the future?"

Puma stared hard at me. "You mean apart from the monstrous surge of the sea? What
else is there to know, foreigner?"

"You did not see the land in flames?"

"The opposite. What future have you concocted, Lord, that mocks the destruction of our
land? We have never known these visions to be wrong or contradictory." He sprang to his feet
and shouted, "How many of you saw fire instead of water?"

The company stayed silent. Guards swiveled to see who among them shared my
erroneous prediction. Rodrigo, alone, rose and sat beside me. "I did. I saw this place burn."

Rodrigo and I became the objects of suspicion from the rest of the group. The guards in
particular, so disciplined during our hike, now talked eagerly among themselves. Pacal and Puma
walked a short distance apart to talk alone, eyeing us suspiciously. The prince then approached us
to deliver his verdict.

"Lord and Rodrigo, you will accompany Pacal Votan. It seems there is still one more
place for you to visit today. We shall follow the river and wait for you where the boats are
moored. Please, do not waste time. Who knows what new beasts will come fleeing over the hills.
They appear to be more certain of their fates than we are of ours."

Chasca Quilla did not say a word. She had obviously left her son in charge. K'achita ran
to Rodrigo for a long embrace, and it was clear to all that the two regarded any time spent apart
as wasted, especially now.

"Come on, then. The sooner we get there, the sooner we get back," I said.

We left the party no later than four o'clock in the afternoon. Across the river, a stiff
breeze nudged us along our easterly path. We descended a series of steep slopes, where the view
was similar to that from the ziggurat balcony. A thin strand of trees lined the foot of the
mountains. It swelled to almost meet the huge southern forest at a bottleneck pasture many miles
ahead. A dense mist cloaked the entire eastern continent, and only a few solitary peaks breached
its ceiling.

Rodrigo had never been more solemn. "I tell you right now, Baz, either we're taking
K'achita back with us, or you're going back alone," he said.

I took the ultimatum on board but didn't reply. I figured he was too emotional to debate
rationally. We could talk it over when he'd settled, though quite when that might be I hadn't the
foggiest. The impending cataclysm would only doom his romance further as the hours bled
by.

Instead of responding, I spoke to Pacal. "I think it is safe to tell us everything. You
Apteronians are enigmatic at the best of times, but any further secrets will serve only one
purpose, to annoy me. So either come clean or we leave right now. Is that understood?"

"Understood, Lord," he replied.

That was it. He was behaving as stubbornly as Rodrigo. I was going to have to play
along for now.

The earth underfoot became a giant rip of devastation, soil and grass churned and
re-churned by a thousand hooves. The wake of the stampede stretched into the eastern mist. Why
was Pacal leading us here? What could possibly be more important than returning to warn the
Kamachej?

He suddenly veered to the north, into a thin cluster of trees at the foot of the mountain.
There we discovered a bizarre elliptical construction. It was sheltered by enormous fallen rocks.
Made of wood and stone, it had been erected with a breathtaking symmetry. I saw only one
window situated exactly at the apex of the roof, around fifteen feet from the ground. It did not
shine like regular glass, though. It appeared to pulse, a crystalline lighthouse in broad daylight,
with a blinding intensity.

The building itself resembled an acorn sliced in half, lengthwise, from cup to nut. Built
of beautifully carved, treated wood, it was anchored to ground by stone ribs. To its right was a
stable housing five large horses. Rodrigo and I glanced at one another. Pacal led us directly
through a narrow door into the acorn itself.

A lively, high-pitched voice addressed us from inside, in the native tongue of
Apterona. "Time-travelers! Time-travelers! Thieves, fools and time-travelers! Well, come in, come
in, or stay outside and be fools there. It makes no difference to me. Ha! Alpaca, you bring me
mudskippers, primitives. Mudskippers! Mud! Ha!"

Pacal cleared his throat, as if a little embarrassed by the man's nonsensical greeting.
"Lord and Rodrigo, this is..."

"An old man," interrupted the stranger, "whose name he has no desire to share at this
time. Alpaca, come and sit a while. Let us inspect these primitives. You've brought me some
fruity beverage? What? You haven't? Why, that's not like you. Hmm... All right then, the
primitives will have to do. Lord? Is there more to that name, or should I bow and hypothesize at
the same time? Ha! Well?"

"My proper title is Lord Henry Basingstoke," I replied.

"I don't like you," he retorted. "You are too arrogant for a mudskipper, far too arrogant. I
didn't like Alpaca's description of you weeks ago and I don't like you now. You're a thief and a
fool. Time-traveler? Ha! Mud lizard, I say. Mud! Mud!"

I was ready to march over and knock the old fool's block off. Perched on a fur-laden
chair, surrounded by piles of scrolls and wooden plates filled with half-eaten meals of
god-knows-what, he looked around eighty years old. His long, unkempt hair shielded his hunched
frame from the shaft of sunlight like a collapsed, silver parasol. Supercilious, his every word and
chortle wound me up with venomous ease. It was as if he knew precisely which buttons to
push.

"Is this why you asked to see me: to hurl abuse?" I demanded, barely in control of my
temper.

"Oh no. I don't abuse. I don't insult. I am simply unable to lie. If you are insulted by
honesty, then you have been raised a liar. Nay, I don't insult, I speak what is on my mind. You
would be well advised to do the same, time-traveler."

"In that case, I don't like you either," I replied. "Your philosophy is unconscionable, and
you appear to be nothing more than a pompous old jackass."

"Agreed," said Rodrigo. "Now tell us, old man, who are you and what do you
want?"

"Ha! Rodrigo, a Spanish time-traveler. I like you. Perhaps Alpaca should have brought
you alone, and not on the shoulder of Lord Blah-blah. Ah well, too late for that now. Hmm...sit
yourselves down, there on the floor will do, while I set aside my vast intelligence to tell my story
at your humble level."

"Just play along, friends," Pacal said to us with a sigh. "He takes some getting used to,
and even then he tries one's patience."

The room was warm and smelled of rancid meat. At the far end, a rudimentary bed lay
buried beneath the old man's supplies. These included three or four spears, animal skins
fashioned as garments, a few metallic devices similar to those in Pacal's home, and a number of
strange, stone artifacts in various states of decrepitude. He leaned forward in his chair,
un-creasing the fur beneath his backside with long, wrinkled fingers. To my astonishment, his hands
appeared to be webbed--the adjoining skin between fingers had grown above the knuckle--and he
was without fingernails. I stared with renewed curiosity.

"Before I begin, which precise period of the future are you from?" he said.

Rodrigo answered first, "The latter half of the twentieth century, if that chronology is
familiar to you. We were unable to figure out exactly how far back in time we had to travel."

"Rightly, rightly, you are neighbors of Mr. Einstein and Mr. Sagan, then, chronologically
speaking. Not so unfortunate, I say. But how versed are you in the science of these primitives?
Well?"

"We are not scientists as such," the Cuban continued. "I am something of an amateur
diver, whereas Baz here is an explorer, an adventurer."

"Ha! Say no more. Two nothings, and arrogant to boot. Fools and thieves, I said. Rich
fools and poor thieves, round trip travelers to nowhere. Hmm... For your information, you
skipped across eleven thousand years. What say you to that? A pity you emerged as mudskippers
still. A pitiable pity."

"Enough!" I shouted. "Kindly point that honesty at yourself for a moment and tell us,
simply, what's on your mind. Please."

Pacal smirked as he looked away, clearly embarrassed by me as well. Typically, he
remained silent when his input might actually have served a purpose. He seemed fascinated by
this meeting, however. I could tell his concentration hung on each and every word.

The old man, for reasons alien to all but him, hurled a small chunk of meat at me. I had
cocked my arm to toss it back when Rodrigo restrained me, whispering, "Let him be, Baz. His
mind's taken a walk. Let's hear him out and then get the hell out, OK?"

I nodded reluctantly.

The old man adjusted his fur seat once more. "First things first, Englishman. You might
be Einsteins, born in tumult and the early days of real science, but you are mudskippers to
me.

"Primitive, primitive! Mud, I say! In that chronology, I exceed your future by some three
million years, and your intellect by an unfathomable margin. I am both scientist and historian;
you are neither, so whatever I say you will have to accept as fact. Ha! Not so arrogant now!

"Your twentieth century world was, is, shall be terraqueous. You dwell on land, much as
we do here, and fear the enormity of the sea. In my time, the sea is our kingdom, and we dwell in
its depths, in cities your primitive intellects could scarcely comprehend. What a pity!

"We fear the land like you fear the sea. Hmm...but our air has toxins that forbid us the
land. The beautiful sky you see here is almost black above the waves in my own time. What a
shame! You Imperialists carried the torch that finally put the terror in terraqueous. What a
shame!

"Centuries later, many centuries, mind. But you Spanish and your trees, what a waste!
What creature cuts the lungs from its own grandchildren and profits from it? Mudskippers, I say!
Mud is what mankind is left with. Ha! But it is all mud to you: back in time, forward in time,
there is no time--only mud!"

I began to see this poorly old man in a different light. While he was outrageously
eccentric, everything he said rang true. Sometimes, I suppose, we prefer only the brighter side of
truth. We construe anything too close to the bone as an attack. Were Rodrigo and I to blame for
making the future uninhabitable? Not directly, but no one who refrains from condemning a crime
can hold his head high either. I felt guilty in the presence of our impolite host.

"And now to the business of time travel. Dear, oh dear. How low my brain will have to
stoop. Suffice to say, you will not be able to grasp the theoretical dimensions of crossing time.
Ha!

"I remember now, your early writers were most entertaining. Wells and his Eloi! Very
good. Those first moving pictures with historical recreations: a crazy-haired scientist sends his
dog back through time in a silver car, and a boy meets his parents before they themselves ever
met. Ha! Very good."

I had read Wells'
The Time Machine
, but hadn't a clue what film he was
referring to.

"Right, right, let me see. How can I explain time simply," he continued. "Hmm...well
first of all, those mechanics are false. Try not to think of it in terms of forward being the future or
backward being the past; think of it more in terms of your imagination.

"Yes, yes! You can lasso a memory of any moment from your past at will, close your
eyes and make it your reality. In essence, you don't visit that time, you bring that past to the
present. Now suppose those memories are tactile and the time machine is your mind. You could
access any time without ever moving, by lassoing it. The same applies with creative thoughts and
dreams, but that is another tale. Ha! You would be astounded. For now, though, think of time as
an infinite selection of thoughts, only these thoughts have real substance if you can lasso them
from
outside
time.

"Hmm...how else to explain it. Twentieth century? Ha! Think of it as peeling away the
crude hubcap of a car, to reveal the spokes holding the wheel together. Right, right! The hubcap
is solid, the flat time line of reality. You can't see the mechanics underneath. When it is removed,
each spoke is a tangent from the center. The tangents spin so quickly you can see only the blur.
That, too, appears solid until you know better.