“If you could do it,” Stern said.
“Yes. And so long as we were working with simple objects, we could. We were encouraged. But, of course, it isn’t sufficient to transmit between two stations connected by cables. We needed to transmit at a distance, over airwaves, so to speak. So we tried that. Here.”
He crossed the room, and came to two more cages, somewhat larger and more elaborate. They were beginning to resemble the cages Stern had seen in the cave. These cages had no connecting cables between them.
“Alice and Bob, part two,” Gordon said. “Or as we called them, Allie and Bobbie. This was our testbed for remote transmission.”
“And?”
“Didn’t work,” Gordon said. “We transmitted from Allie but never got to Bob. Ever.”
Stern nodded slowly. “Because the object from Allie went to another universe.”
“Yes. Of course, we didn’t know that right away,” Gordon said. “I mean, that was the theoretical explanation, but who would suspect it was actually happening? It took us a hell of a long time to work it out. Finally, we built a homing machine — one that would go out, and come back automatically. The team called it ‘Allie-Allie-in-come-free.’ It’s over here.”
Another cage, still larger, perhaps three feet high, and recognizably like the cages that were now used. The same three bars, the same laser arrangement.
“And?” Stern said.
“We verified that the object went out and back,” Gordon said. “So we sent more elaborate objects. Pretty soon we succeeded in sending a camera, and got back a picture.”
“Yes?”
“It was a picture of the desert. Actually, this exact site. But before any buildings were here.”
Stern nodded. “And you could date it?”
“Not immediately,” Gordon said. “We kept sending the camera out, again and again, but all we got was the desert. Sometimes in rain, sometimes in snow, but always desert. Clearly, we were going out to different times — but what times? Dating the image was quite tricky. I mean, how would you use a camera to date an image of a landscape like that?”
Stern frowned. He saw the problem. Most old photographs were dated from the human artifacts in the image — a building, or a car, or clothing, or ruins. But an uninhabited desert in New Mexico would hardly change appearance over thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of years.
Gordon smiled. “We turned the camera vertically, used a fish-eye lens, and shot the sky at night.”
“Ah.”
“Of course it doesn’t always work — it has to be night, and the sky has to be clear of clouds — but if you have enough planets in your image, you can identify the sky quite exactly. To the year, the day and the hour. And that’s how we began to develop our navigation technology.”
“So the whole project changed. . . .”
“Yes. We knew what we had, of course. We weren’t doing object transmission anymore — there wasn’t any point in trying. We were doing transportation between universes.”
“And when did you start to send people?”
“Not for some time.”
Gordon led him around a wall of electronic equipment, into another part of the lab. And there, Stern saw huge hanging plastic sheets filled with water, like water beds turned on end. And in the center, a full-size machine cage, not as refined as the ones he had seen in the transit room, but clearly the same technology.
“This was our first real machine,” Gordon said proudly.
“Wait a minute,” Stern said. “Does this thing work?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Does it work now?”
“It hasn’t been used for some time,” Gordon said. “But I imagine it does. Why?”
“So if I wanted to go back and help them,” Stern said, “then I could — in this machine. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Gordon said, nodding slowly. “You could go back in this machine, but—”
“Look, I think they’re in trouble back there — or worse.”
“Probably. Yes.”
“And you’re telling me we have a machine that works,” Stern said, “right now.”
Gordon sighed. “I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that, David.”
* * *
29:10:00
Kate fell in slow motion as the ceiling stones gave way. As she descended, her fingers closed on the ragged mortared edge, and with the practice of many years, she gripped it, and it held. She hung by one hand, looking down as the falling stones tumbled in a cloud of dust onto the floor of the chapel. She didn’t see what had happened to the soldiers.
She raised her other hand, grabbing the stone edge. The other stones would break away any minute, she knew. The whole ceiling was crumbling. Structurally, the greatest strength was near the reinforced line of the groin, where the arches met. There, or at the side wall of the chapel, which was vertical stone.
She decided to try and get to the side wall.
The stone broke away; she dangled from her left hand. She crossed one hand over the other, reaching as far as she could manage, trying again to spread the weight of her body.
The stone in her left hand broke loose, falling to the floor. Again she swung in the air, and found another handhold. She was now only three feet from the side wall, and the stone was noticeably thicker as it swelled to meet the wall. The edge she was holding felt more stable.
She heard soldiers below, shouting and running into the chapel. It would not be long before they were shooting arrows at her.
She tried to swing her left leg up. The more she could distribute her weight, the better off she would be. She got the leg up; the ceiling held. Twisting her torso, she pulled her body up onto the shelf, then brought her second leg up. The first of the arrows whistled past her; others thunked against the stone, raising little white puffs. She was lying flat on top of the roof.
But she could not stay here. She rolled away from the edge, toward the groin line. As she did, more stones broke away and fell.
The soldiers stopped shouting. Maybe the falling stones had hit one of them, she thought. But no: she heard them running hastily out of the church. She heard men outside, shouting, and horses whinnying.
What was going on?
:
Inside the tower room, Chris heard the scrape of the key in the lock. Then the soldiers outside paused and shouted through the door — calling to the guard inside the room.
Meanwhile, Marek was searching like a madman. He was on his knees, looking under the bed. “Got it!” he cried. He scrambled to his feet, holding a broadsword and a long dagger. He tossed the dagger to Chris.
Outside, the soldiers were again shouting to the guard inside. Marek moved toward the door and gestured for Chris to step to the other side.
Chris pressed back flat against the wall by the door. He heard the voices of the men outside — many voices. His heart began to pound. He had been shocked by the way Marek killed the guard.
They’re coming to kill you.
He heard the words repeated over and over in his head, with a sense of unreality. It didn’t seem possible that armed men were coming to kill him.
In the comfort of the library, he had read accounts of past violent acts, murder and slaughter. He had read descriptions of streets slippery with blood, soldiers soaked in red from head to foot, women and children eviscerated despite their piteous pleas. But somehow, Chris had always assumed these stories were exaggerated, overstated. Within the university, it was the fashion to interpret documents ironically, to talk about the naïveté of narrative, the context of text, the privileging of power. . . . Such theoretical posturing turned history into a clever intellectual game. Chris was good at the game, but playing it, he had somehow lost track of a more straightforward reality — that the old texts recounted horrific stories and violent episodes that were all too often true. He had lost track of the fact that he was reading history.
Until now, when it was forcibly brought to his attention.
The key turned in the lock.
On the other side of the door, Marek’s face was fixed in a snarl, his lips drawn back, showing teeth clenched. He was like an animal, Chris thought. Marek’s body was taut as he gripped his sword, ready to swing. Ready to kill.
The door pushed open, momentarily blocking Chris’s view. But he saw Marek swing high, and he heard a scream, and a huge gush of blood splashed onto the floor, and a body fell soon after.
The door banged against his body, stopping its full swing and pinning Chris behind it. On the other side a man slammed against it, then gasped as a sword splintered wood. Chris tried to get out from behind the door but another body fell, blocking his way.