Unburning Alexandria (26 page)

Max realized what was happening. "But you told me the android told you about Alcibiades and why he stayed away from you – she didn't tell you about Thomas?"

"What exactly are you telling me?" Sierra asked, through tears.

"That, according to the android, Alcibiades at some point had his face changed to look like someone else, just like you did with Hypatia, except in Alcibiades's case the face was of no one in particular, just very different from the face you loved in Alcibiades."

"Why? Why didn't she tell me herself?" Sierra asked.

"I don't know," Max replied. "Maybe because she was afraid you wouldn't come back here if you knew, because you didn't want to have a confrontation with Thomas–"

The human waiter approached and put the tea on their table. "Will there be anything else?"

[Alexandria, 415 AD]

"Hypatia!" Benjamin exclaimed in concern and reproach as he entered Hypatia's quarters in the Library. "I heard that you had returned, I did not want to believe it, and I am grieved to see it is true."

"You have gotten older." She absently touched her chin, and was glad the face-change had taken so well.

"Please do not change the subject," Benjamin said. "The Nitrians are more aggressive than ever. It is unsafe for you to be here."

She waved that off. "How is your father?"

"Again, beside the point," Benjamin said, aggravated. "He has remarried, but I have not been in touch with him for months – he is in another time now." He moved closer and spoke in an urgent whisper. "What are you doing here? Have you grown tired of life?"

"I came back to retrieve a scroll. I arrived, first, in 410 - to steer clear of the Nitrians. But Appleton interrupted me and insisted I leave with him. He said he would make a spectacle if I did not, so I left – without the scroll. Now I'm back here – this is the last chance I will have."

Benjamin frowned and shook his head in disbelief. "A scroll?"

He received no answer.

"Are you sure it is not your lost love, Alcibiades, that you seek here?"

[New York City, 2061 AD]

Max and Sierra quickly packed their Victorian clothes in their room. They had gone to a vintage store in the Village after breakfast, and obtained clothing suitable for their visit to William Henry Appleton in the 1890s, with pockets deep enough to hold the scrolls. They had also spent a small fortune on fistfuls of silver dollars from the 1880s to cover their expenses on this trip. Sierra was glad the android had loaded their phones with so much credit. They had cleaned out five stamp and coin shops of every 1880s silver dollar in stock.

Max put a call into the Millennium. "Good," he said. "See you soon."

"Thomas is not there?" Sierra asked. She knew he had died in 2058, but with these chairs you never knew who might appear in the Club after their passing.

"No, just Cyril Charles, who's now expecting us. He checked and says there are two chairs there."

"I really don't want to see anyone now," Sierra said, "not before we get our scrolls safely lodged with Mr. Appleton. But I guess we have no choice with Mr. Charles."

Max nodded. "Have we made a final decision about whether to scan the scrolls and store the scans here as back-up, before we give the scrolls to Appleton?"

"Scanning the scrolls will be no easy process." Sierra said. "Could take hours, even a day or two - they're after all not flat paper – and we likely would have to leave them in someone else's possession during that time."

"Cyril said he'd be in the Millennium all week," Max said.

"And there's also the danger of any scan attracting Heron," Sierra said.

"We're a five-minute walk from the Millennium," Max said. "Let's forget the scans and go."

* * *

They pulled and pushed open the outer and inner doors of the Millennium Club about five minutes later. An elderly gent to who looked to be in his early hundreds welcome them. "Mr. Charles is upstairs," he said and glanced again at the photos on his phone, just to confirm that Sierra and Max were indeed the couple that Charles had said he was expecting.

They walked up the spacious central flight of stairs. Cyril Charles was seated at a far table, talking to a woman neither Max nor Sierra knew. Charles spotted them and walked quickly over with handshakes and a smile.

"Good to see the two of you again! Would you care for something to eat?"

Sierra thought Charles didn't look a day older than the last time they had met, or, for that matter, any and every other time they had met. "We're fine, thanks," she said, and gave him a big hug and a soft kiss on the cheek. She knew she had no idea how long it had been for Mr. Charles since she had last seen him, or how many times if any her older self might have seen him in the interim. And, if she remembered correctly, he didn't like time travelers asking him, because that courted too many paradoxical complications.

"Would you like to go upstairs to the chairs now?" he inquired, just the slightest bit flustered by the affection.

"Yes, thank you," Sierra said.

They walked past the library, past the ancient holdings, to the spiral staircase that led to the past or the future. Sierra had an urge to put the Aristotle scrolls she carried right there on the shelf along with the Jowett translations and other Aristotle books. But these were scrolls she had rescued from the flames to come in Alexandria, she reminded herself, not books, and they would stick out of the bookcase like sore thumbs. She wanted them nestled safely and securely somewhere, available in a non-flamboyant way for scholars or anyone who happened to come upon them, so their wisdom could naturally percolate into the culture. If they attracted too much attention, that could lead to questions about where they had come from and how they had gotten here. . . . Just like the manuscript with Socrates and Andros that had drawn her into all of this in the first place–

She realized that Max had a climbed a few steps up the staircase and was looking down at her.

"Is everything ok?" Charles inquired gently. "These trips you take can be very taxing."

"I'm fine," Sierra said.

"Would you like to postpone–" Charles continued.

"No, I'm fine, really," she said. She flashed him a bright smile and started the climb. She, Max, and Mr. Charles were in the room a half a minute later.

"Well, you know how this works," he gestured to the two chairs. "I'll bid you bon voyage now, walk back down those stairs, and won't tell a soul about this, including your future selves." He smiled again and turned to leave–

"Who do you work for?" Sierra suddenly blurted out.

"Excuse me?" Charles replied, taken a little aback.

"She wants to know who hired you, who pays your salary, you know," Max said.

"Well, this Club, to be sure," Charles replied. "But you knew that."

"I think she wants to make sure that your employer isn't Heron of Alexandria," Max said.

"I assure you, I have never even met the man," Charles said.

"Then how did you come to be employed here, in the first place?" Sierra asked.

"I was hired in an earlier time, and when I first was hired, I did not even know about the chairs – Mr. William Henry Appleton showed them to me the first time."

"And who told him about the chairs?" Sierra asked.

"I believe that was Thomas O'Leary," Charles said. "I am puzzled by all of these questions – do you mistrust me? Did you find reason in your travels to think I might be working against your best interests?"

"I'm sorry," Sierra said. "I have never had any reason, found any occasion, to do nothing but trust you to the utmost, as I always have and always will." She squeezed his shoulder and he took her hand.

"That's quite all right, my dear," Charles said. "I know these trips take their toll." He left and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Sierra and Max changed into their Victorian clothes, and left their 2061 garb in a bag that Cyril Charles would retrieve and store as soon as they were gone. Sierra set the arrival time for 1895 on both chairs. "Five or more years since the last time he time-traveled, as far as we know, and four years before he died," she said to Max about Appleton, "should keep us clear of paradox but give him enough time to arrange for translations and quietly introduce the scrolls into his world."

Max nodded. "These chairs are not as precise as the ones we've been using."

"Right" Sierra said. "They're like stick shifts compared to automatics. Or automatics compared to robocars. But they have the synch feature, so even if they arrive a little earlier or later, they'll both arrive at the same time. Ready?"

Max smiled. "Yeah."

The bubble ascended in each chair. Sierra thought the kiss of the cosmos was a little more soulful than with the newer models. The bubbles went down. She and Max stood and quickly made their way downstairs. "I'm glad Mr. Charles is not here now," Sierra said quietly. "I shouldn't have jumped on him like that." And in fact she was glad that she saw no one in the main Millennium hall that she knew.

[New York City, 1895 AD]

Max and Sierra walked out into bright, crisp light. "It feels like either Spring or Fall," Max said. "Grand Central Depot should still be that way, right?"

"Yeah, it's been here since 1871," Sierra replied.

They came to a bustling newsstand about half a block later on Fifth Avenue. Max gave the man behind the stand a silver dollar and picked up a thin paper copy of The New York Times.

"Do you have anything smaller," the balding, bearded news agent asked.

"No, sorry," Max replied.

The news agent grunted and counted out three quarters, two dimes, and two shiny new Indian-head pennies, which Max took and pocketed.

"Cheapskate," Sierra scolded Max as they resumed their walk down Fifth Avenue. "Why didn't you tell him to just keep the change?"

"I didn't want to attract undue attention by appearing too generous back here," Max said.

"Right," Sierra said.

Max pointed to the date on the paper – "NEW-YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1895".

"The chairs were pretty accurate this time," Sierra said, and took Max's arm.

The two reached Grand Central Depot five minutes later. "Uh, excuse me, Miss," Max said to a young woman who appeared to be in her 20s, with long black hair and bright blue eyes, "could you tell us where the nearest phone station is?"

She looked at Max, then Sierra, then back at Max, and smiled shyly. "I believe there is one in that direction." She pointed to an entrance to the Depot on the corner.

"Thank you," Max said, and smiled engagingly back. "And, would you by any chance have two nickels for this dime?" He proffered one of the Liberty Seated dimes he had received from the news agent.

"I believe I do," the woman said and reached into her pocket. Max exchanged the dime for two Liberty Head nickels.

"Thank you so much," Max said.

The woman smiled again and walked away.

Max, still smiling, looked carefully at the two nickels. "My grandfather was an avid collector," he told Sierra, "My father gave me the collection when I was a kid."

"Ok, maybe you're not just a cheapskate," Sierra said. "She has almost a British accent, doesn't she?" Sierra remarked about the woman. "I've noticed that about some people back here in New York in this time." She took Max's arm again and they walked into Grand Central.

"They didn't have phone booths quite yet," Max said, as they approached a phone on the top of a box mounted on a wall. A man who had been standing in front of the phone turned and nodded vigorously. "I'm going to have one of these installed in my home!" he said.

Max and Sierra nodded back and looked at the box as the man walked away. "Do not deposit nickel until told to do so by the Operator." Max slowly read aloud the engraved words on the box, and pointed to a slot below the word "deposit" that was precisely the size of a nickel. "Let's hope Appleton's phone number works."

"He gave it to me more than once," Sierra said. She had written it on a piece of paper back in the hotel room in 2061. Max handed her a nickel, then took the phone off the hook and handed her the phone, too.

The operator asked Sierra what number she wished to call, and instructed her to place the nickel in the slot.

She waited what felt like a long time, but was actually less than a minute.

Then – "Mr. Appleton?"

[Carthage, 415 AD]

The Nubian ushered Heron into Augustine's room.

"Hypatia is back in the Library, at this very minute," Heron said, with some urgency. "She has to be stopped."

"Don't expect me to condone murder, because I will not," Augustine replied.

"There are many texts yet in the Library which could cause humanity irreparable harm – enabling the construction of fearsome weapons, well before the social and technological means existed to control them," Heron said. "That is why I've thought it best to let the whole remainder of the Library burn at Omar's hands in centuries to come."

"You do not know that those are the texts she would take to the future," Augustine said. "Perhaps she only wants to save another scroll written by Aristotle, which might well do humanity some good."

Heron shook his head in frustration. "What would you suggest we do, then? Nothing?"

"That could be the best policy – let history run its original course," Augustine replied. "The Nitrians, despite all I have done to eradicate them, are still at large. They will soon put Hypatia to death. History as well as your anxieties will be served."

"But she could go to the future today – tomorrow – at any time before the Nitrian attack," Heron responded.

"Then use your skills to disable at least some of those time-transgressing chairs."

[New York City, 1895 AD]

Sierra and Max took the Hudson River train up to Riverdale, enjoying every ray of sunlight that glinted off the river through the rattling window. They hiked up the road to Appleton's Wave Hill home.

Appleton was standing in front of his open door. Sierra thought he looked a little more tired and older. He walked forth and opened his arms to both of them. "Whatever happens now, no more travel overseas to time travel. You can live your lives here, or in your time, but on this side of the Atlantic, safe and sound."