“That’s a damned good question. A damned good question.”
“We need to talk.”
Rachel lounged comfortably under the canopy, stretched out along a bench, a stitched-together strip of marsh reeds over her eyes, like a sleeping band. A pair of rabbits, freshly caught and cleaned and skinned, roasted gently over the fire. A pile of greens were in a stone bowl. A two-person stone vessel of fresh beer, latest batch, zero on the tetracycline, light on the hawthorn berries, heavy on the grapes and honey, straws already in place, waited to go with dinner.
She wore new clothes now, stitched and shaped by Asherah. Rachel filled them out comfortably, her weight finally back from the plague and the diarrhea after Artie accidentally dosed her with too much tetracycline. She looked damned good. Martin saw her and smiled.
“Something up?” she asked and sat up. She took off the sleep band and set it to the side.
Check the handle of your knife. On yourself.
Rachel slipped out her knife and, unobtrusively, scanned herself.
“Uncertainty is going up,” she said. Suddenly, she looked nervous. She looked up at Martin. He sat down on the bench across from her.
“Now, check me.”
She turned the knife toward Martin. Frowned. Looked up at him.
“Nothing. No uncertainty at all.”
It’s time to explain some things, Artie said.
“A long time ago,” Martin started, “a long, long, time ago, I came back. Not to here. Not to anywhere near here. But I came back. A long when back. One hell of a lot farther than now. I had a job to do. I did it. I didn’t want to do it, but I did it. And when I finished that job, I couldn’t go back home.”
“You changed your own future,” Rachel said. Her eyes widened. “That’s why the the causality scan doesn’t work on you. You don’t have a future.”
What a lovely way to phrase it.
“Shut up,” Martin said, automatically, to Artie. He nodded to Rachel. “But correct. I have no future. My timeline doesn’t exist. Not at all, and not in any way. I can go farther back, but I can’t go forward. If I go back, I have to live my way, one day at a time, back to now, in a slightly different timeline where I never existed before.”
“You’re lost. You’re trapped, here in the past,” Rachel said. She sounded fascinated, like Martin was some kind of insect frozen in amber.
“I am not trapped,” Martin said, determined. He stared directly into Rachel’s eyes.
“I have no destiny, no pre-ordained future,” he said, slowly. “But I’m going forward anyway. One day at a time. And I’m going to make my own future. I’m going to make it be the way I want it to be. And nothing and no one is going to stand in my way.”
“You left someone behind when you went back,” Rachel said.
“I left everything behind. Everyone and everything,” Martin agreed. His voice hardened. “It had to be done. But I’m going to get them all back. I’m going to build that future, one day at a time, until I get back everything I lost.”
“It can’t be done,” Rachel said. She sounded uncertain. She turned away and shook her head. Martin reached out, touched her shoulder, turned her back toward him. He lifted up her chin until she looked at him.
“We are going to do it,” he said. “You and me and Artie.”
“How?”
To start with, we’re going to make sure that Rome burns Carthage to the ground…
The Tall Men and the roof were in place. The dark corridor with its deep black entrance were all in place. The temple at Gobekli Tepe was ready.
At first the visitors were just an individual or two, awed and silent, escorted by the priests through the corridor and up to the Tall Men. There they touched the stones, ran their fingers over the bas relief sculptures and left a gift for the gods.
But word spread quickly. The hunter gatherers came home from across the plains. Soon individual camps, families and clans and tribes, dotted the hills and valleys all around the central hill of Gobekli Tepe. During the day there was a constant flow of people back and forth, up and down, between the different tents and shelters. Hunting parties went out hungry and came back, mostly with gazelle, but with auroch and wild pig and goats and anything else they could catch or trap. Fishing and gathering went on relentlessly down at the rivers and creeks and in the marshes. Trading, for bone and obsidian and flint, was a busy trade. Young men and women, as they always did, found each other.
And everyone wanted beer…
“Tiamat, a fresh straw! I have a rabbit for you.”
“Not enough.” Rachel shook her head.
“Two rabbits, then. But only for the latest batch, with the extra honey.”
“Enki, you’ve already had too much. You can barely stand.”
“I don’t need to stand to drink!” Enki sat down, unsteady, on the bench Martin had set up outside his hut. He grinned, two teeth gone from a wrestling accident the night before. Tiamat handed him another jar of beer. Enki passed over two rabbits in payment. She looked at them, critically, felt them.
“All fur and no meat,” she complained. “Enki, I think you’ve cheated me.”
Unobtrusively, she scanned him with her knife handle.
Negative, Artie said. He was an expert with the causality tool by now. Tell him we need more wheat grain for the next batch.
“Enki,” Martin asked casually. “You ever go up by Lake Van?”
Enki made a face.
“It’s a long walk up there.”
Martin nodded.
“And the water’s no good,” Enki added. He sipped and smiled.
“Good beer.”
“Enki. Lake Van.”
“What? No, I never go there. Too salty. Why?”
“I heard there was some new kind of wheat from up there.” Martin shrugged, pointed at the multiple vats of beer brewing behind him. “I always need more wheat. And if it tasted different, well, some people like to try different beers. A woman last night said Lake Van has the best wheat.”
Enki nodded.
“Talk to Nilik, down in the valley. His family lives close to Van and he always has plenty of wheat. Maybe you can make a trade.”
“Thanks.”
“Now that I’ve helped you,” Enki said, “I’d like to point out that my jar is getting a little empty….”
“My uncertainty is rising again.”
Which means we’re getting close.
“Which means I could just vanish in an eye blink,” Rachel said sharply.
Martin hesitated.
No, Artie said, instantly, in silent. I might not be able to read your mind, but I know how you think. I know what you’re going to say. Don’t even start—
“We could wait,” Martin said slowly, “until you’re back uptime. With your mother.”
“With the Kehin,” Rachel said sharply. “Without you and Artie. Trapped in Qart-hadast.”
“There is that,” Martin admitted.
“More beer!” someone shouted from the crowd at the front of the hut. “More beer!”
“Martin, this is my friend Nilik,” Enki said. He sat down on the bench. Nilik stood beside him.
Nilik was sun-browned and wiry, medium height, a lined face and black haired with a few grey streaks. Uptime, Martin would have guessed he was a well-preserved grandfather. Here he was probably a medium-aged father.
He carried a small leather pouch on his belt. Martin smiled and waved him to sit on the bench next to Enki.
“Get Rachel,” Martin said, in silent.
Martin reached down and touched a small trough of beer.
Not that, Artie interrupted. The special beer. If this the real thing we want to make sure he’s healthy and he makes it back to Lake Van.