Even so, I cant believe youve achieved so much so quickly Abdikadir, viewing all this industry, felt faintly guilty. Perhaps he had been away too long.
He had enjoyed his explorations. In India Abdikadir and his party had hacked a path through dense jungle, encountering all manner of exotic plants and animalsthough few people. Similar expeditions were being sent out to east, west, north, south, across Europe, Asia, Africa. To map out this new and rich world seemed to fill a void in Abdikadirs heart left by the loss of his own worldand the trauma of the great killing during the Mongol assault. Perhaps he was exploring the outer world in order to distract himself from the turmoil of the innerand perhaps he had been evading his true responsibilities too long.
He turned away from the city and gazed toward the south, where the glistening tracks of irrigation canals lanced across fields of green. Here was the real work of the world: growing food. This was the Fertile Crescent, after all, the birthplace of organized agriculture, and once its artificially irrigated fields had provided a third of the food supply for the Persian empire. There surely couldnt have been a better place to start farming again. But Abdikadir had already inspected the fields, and he knew that things werent going well.
It is this wretched cold, Eumenes complained. The astronomers may call this midsummer, but I have known no summer like it And then there are the locusts, and other plagues of insects.
The recovery program was indeed impressive, even if it had been slow starting. The quest to save Babylon from the Mongols was long over, and there seemed no real prospect of a revival of the Mongol threat in the near future. Alexanders ambassadors reported that the Mongols seem stunned by the sudden emptying of China, to their southfifty million people, vanished into thin air. The war with the Mongols had been a great adventurebut it had been a diversion. With the battle won, there had been a deep sense of anticlimax among the British, Macedonians, and Little Bird crew alike, and everyone in Babylon was suddenly left to face the unpleasant truth that this was one campaign from which none of them was ever going home.
It had taken some time for them to discover a new purpose: to build a new world. And Alexander, with his energy and indomitable will, had been central to establishing that sense of purpose.
And what is the King working on himself?
That. Eumenes pointed grandly to the ceremonial heart of the city.
Abdikadir saw that a broad area had been cleared, and the lower levels of what looked like a new ziggurat had been laid out. He whistled. That looks like it will rival Babel itself.
Perhaps it will. Nominally, it is a monument for Hephaistion; its deeper purpose will be to commemorate the world we have lost. These Macedonians always did treasure their funerary arts! And Alexander, I think, has an ambition to rival the massive tombs he once saw in Egypt. But with things as they are in the fields, it is hard for us to afford the manpower for such a venture, no matter how magnificent.
Abdikadir studied the Greeks finely chiseled face. I have a feeling youre asking me for something.
Eumenes smiled. And I have a feeling you have a little Greek in you too. Abdikadir, although the Kings wife Roxana delivered a sona boy who is now four years oldso that we have an heir, Alexanders continued well-being over the next few years is essential to us all.
Of course.
But this , Eumenes said, meaning the dockyards and fields, is not enough for him. The King is a complex man, Abdikadir. I should know. He is a Macedonian, of courseand he drinks like one. But he is capable of cold calculation, like a Persian; and he can be a statesman of startling insighthe is like a Greek of the cities!
But for all his wisdom, Alexander has the heart of a warrior, and there is a tension between his warmongering instincts and his will to build an empire. I dont think he always understands that himself. He was born to fight men, not locusts in a field, or silt in a canal. Lets face it, there are few men to be found out there to fight! The Greek leaned toward Abdikadir. The truth is, the running of Babylonia has devolved to a handful of those close to him. There is myself, Perdiccas, and Captain Grove. Perdiccas was one of Alexanders long-serving officers, and among his closest associates; Perdiccas, a commander of the Foot Companion infantrymen, had been formally given the title Hephaistion had enjoyed before his death, which meant something like Vizier. Eumenes winked. They need my Greek cleverness, you see, but I need Macedonians to work through. Of course we each have our own followersespecially Perdiccas! There are cliques and conspiracies, as there always have been. But as long as Alexander towers over us, we work together well enough. We all need Alexander; New Babylon needs its King. But
It doesnt need him hanging around here with nothing to do, soaking up manpower on monuments while there are fields to be tilled. Abdikadir grinned. You want me to distract him?
Eumenes said smoothly, I wouldnt put it like that. But Alexander has expressed curiosity to know if the greater world you described to us is still there to be had. And I think he wants to visit his father.
His father?
His divine father, Ammon, who is also Zeus, at his shrine in the desert.
Abdikadir whistled. That would be quite a tour.
Eumenes smiled. All the better. There is the question of Bisesa, too.
I know. Shes still locked away with that damn Eye.
Im sure its invaluable work. But we dont want to lose her to it: you moderns are too few to spare. Take her with you. Eumenes smiled. I hear that Josh is back from Judea. Perhaps he might distract her
Youre a wily devil, Secretary Eumenes.
One does what one must, said Eumenes. Come. Ill show you round the shipyards.
The temple chamber was a rats nest of cables and wires and bits of kit from the crashed chopper, some of them scarred where they had been crudely cut from the wreck, or even scorched by the fires that had followed the crash. This tangle enclosed the Eye, as if Bisesa had been seeking to trap it, not study it. But she knew that Abdikadir thought it was she who had become trapped.
The Discontinuity was a physical event, Bisesa said firmly. No matter how mighty the power behind it. Physical, not magical or supernatural. And so its explicable in terms of physics.
But, said Abdikadir, not necessarily our physics.
She glanced vaguely about the temple chamber, wishing she still had the phone to help her explain.
Abdikadir, and a wide-eyed, scared-looking Josh, had settled down in a corner of the chamber. She knew Josh hated this placenot just for the awesome presence of the Eye, but because it had taken her away from him. Now Josh cracked a flask of hot tea with milk, English-style, as Bisesa tried to explain her current theories about the Eye, and the Discontinuity.
Bisesa said, Space and time were ruptured during the Discontinuityruptured and put back together again. We know that much, and in a way we can understand it. Space and time are in some senses real .You can bend space-time, for instance, with a strong enough gravity field. Its as stiff as steel, but you can do it
But if space-time is stuff, whats it made of? If you look really closelyor if you subject it to enough bending and foldingwell, you can see the grain. Our best idea is that space and time are a kind of tapestry. The fundamental units of the tapestry are strings, minuscule strings. The strings vibrateand the modes of the vibration, the tones of the strings, are the particles and energy fields we observe, and their properties, such as their masses. There are many ways the strings can vibratemany notes they can playbut some of them, the highest energy modes, have not been seen since the birth of the universe.