It is gone, said Ruddy. Bisesa was surprised to see his eyes, behind his thick spectacles, were misting. Perhaps it is because I was born abroad that this affects me so. But Home is gone, all of it, all that history down to the Romans and even deeper, vanished like dew.
Captain Grove put a scarred hand on his shoulder. Chin up, man. Well clear that bloody forest and build our own history if we have to, youll see.
Ruddy nodded, seeming unable to speak.
Casey watched this little melodrama wide-eyed, his gum-chewing briefly suspended. Then he said, Ill cut to the chase. The Soyuz found only three sites, on the whole damn planet, where therere signs of any advanced technical cultureand one of them is right here. The second He tapped his graffiti map, at the southern tip of the unmistakable shape of Lake Michigan.
Chicago, Josh breathed.
Yeah, Casey said. But dont get your hopes up. We can see dense urban settlementa lot of smoke, as if from factorieseven what look like steamboats on the lake. But they didnt respond to the Soyuz s radio signals.
They could be from any era before the development of radio, Abdikadir said. Say, 1850. Even then the population was sizable.
Yeah, Casey growled, pulling up images on his softscreen. But they have problems of their own right now. They are surrounded by ice. The hinterland has goneno farmlandand no trade, because theres nobody to trade with.
And where, Bisesa said slowly, is the third advanced site?
Casey pulled up an image of the Middle East. Here. Theres a citysmall, we think ancient, not like Chicago. But whats interesting about it is that Soyuz picked up a radio signal from therethe only one on the planet, save for ours. But it wasnt like ours. Its powerful, but regular, just an upward chirp through the frequencies.
A beacon, perhaps, Abdikadir said.
Maybe. Its not one of our designs.
Bisesa peered at the softscreen. The city was set in a broad expanse of green, apparently cultivated land, laced with suspiciously straight waterways, like shining threads. I think this is Iraq.
That, said Cecil de Morgan firmly, is Babylon.
Ruddy gasped. Babylon lives again!
And thats all, Casey said. Just us, and this beacon in Babylon.
They fell silent. Babylon: the very name was exotic to Bisesa, and her head buzzed with speculation about how that strange beacon had got there.
Captain Grove seized the moment. The little man stepped forward, mighty mustache bristling, and he clapped his hands briskly. Well, thank you, Mr. Othic. Heres the way I see it. We have to concentrate on our own position, since its clear that nobody is about to come to our rescue, so to speak. Not only that, I think we have to find something to do to give ourselves a goalits time we stop reacting to whatever the gods throw at us, and start taking command.
Here, here, Ruddy murmured.
Im open to suggestions.
We must go to Chicago, Josh said. With so many people, so much industry, so much potential
They dont know were here, Casey said bluntly. Oh, perhaps they saw Soyuz pass overhead, but even if they did they wont have understood.
And we have no way to reach them, Captain Grove said. Were scarcely in a position to mount a transatlantic crossing Perhaps in the future. But for now we must put Chicago out of our minds.
Babylon, said Abdikadir. Its the obvious goal. And theres that beacon: perhaps we will learn more of what has become of us.
Grove nodded. Besides, I like the look of all that green. Wasnt Babylon an early center of agriculture? The Fertile Crescent and all that? Perhaps we should consider a relocation up there. A march wouldnt be impossible.
Abdikadir smiled. Youre thinking of farming, Captain?
Its hardly been my lifelong ambition, but needs must, Mr. Omar.
Bisesa pointed out, But somebody lives there already.
Groves face hardened. Well deal with that when we get there. In that moment, Bisesa glimpsed something of the steel that had enabled these British to build an empire that spanned a planet.
There was no serious alternative suggestion. Babylon it would be.
The party began to break up into smaller groups, talking, planning. Bisesa was struck by a new sense of purpose, of direction.
Josh, Ruddy and Abdikadir walked back across the mud with Bisesa. Abdikadir said, Grove is a smart cookie.
What do you mean?
His eagerness to go to Babylon. Its not just so we can plow fields. There will be women there .
Before his men start mutinying, you mean.
Josh grinned uneasily. Think of it: five hundred Adams and five hundred Eves
Ruddy said, Youre right that Grove is a good officer. Hes very aware of the mood in the barrack-rooms and the Mess. Many of the men who had happened to be at Jamrud during the Discontinuity were three-year-olds, Ruddy said, short-service troops. Few of em have pipeclay in the marrow Pipeclay was the whitener the troops used on their belts. Theyre actually keeping their spirits up remarkably well. But that mood wont last long, once they realize how little chance there is that any of us is going home any time soon. Babylon might be just the thing.
Abdikadir said, You know, we are fortunate in having the Soyuz, and so much data. But weve lots of unanswered questions. That two-million-year frame is interesting, for instance.
How so?
Because two million years is about the date of the emergence of Homo erectus the first hominid. Some predecessor species, like the pithecines the British captured, overlapped for a time, but
You think the time frame has something to do with us ?
It may be just a coincidencebut why not one million years, why not twenty, or two hundred million? And the oldest parts of this world-quilt seem to be where we are oldest, and the youngest, like the Americas, where we reached last Perhaps this new world is somehow a representative sampling of human, and hominid, history.
She shuddered. But so much of the world is empty.
The history of Homo sapiens is just the last chapter of the long, slow story of hominid evolution. We are mere dust, floating on the surface of history, Bisesa. Perhaps thats what the state of this world shows us. Its a fair sample across time.
Josh tugged at Bisesas sleeve. Something has occurred to meit may not have struck you or the othersbut then my perspective, as a man of the nineteenth century, is different
Spit it out, Josh.
You look out at this new world, and you see scraps of your past. But I see a little of my future, too, in you. Why should you be the lastwhy, Bisesa, is there nothing of your own future?
The thought struck her all at once, fully formed; she felt shocked it hadnt occurred to her. She had no reply.
Captain Grove! Over here! Corporal Batson, on the edge of the parade ground, was waving. Grove hurried over; Bisesa and the others followed.
Batson was with a small group of soldiers, a British corporal and a number of sepoys, who were holding two men. These strangers had their hands tied behind their back. They were shorter, stockier than the sepoys, and more muscular. They both wore knee-length smocks of faded purple, tied at the waist with bits of rope, and strapped-up leather sandals. Their faces were broad and swarthy and roughly shaved, their black hair curly and cropped short. They were crusted with dried blood, and they were evidently terrified of the sepoys guns; when a soldier playfully lifted his rifle, one of the pair cried out and tumbled to his knees.