“Then won’t it be guarded now?” said Robert. “I mean, on this mission you have planned to the second Sphinx?”
“Perhaps,” LeGrand admitted, “but we’re targeting them just as they establish the place—a secret chamber beneath the Sphinx where their scribe will carve out the key Nexus Points in the whole of human history. That’s what they were using as a guideline. That’s why we could never figure out how they could still resist us when we destroyed the last of their Arch complexes in our time. They’re damn conniving—cunning beyond our ken. They used these Oklo reactions to build hidden transfer gates—they call them wells. We’ve only found the one thanks to you, at Wadi Rumm, but there have to be others, and we’ve no time to look for them now.”
“And what if we destroy this hidden chamber? That’s what you want us to do, correct?” Paul wanted to get a glimpse of the outcome should they decide to undertake the mission.
“If you can,” said LeGrand. “It’s underground, and we’ve enough information to formulate a possible plan of attack. We found it in their own literature… the hidden stream that carries the walkers to the chamber of Time. The whole place is underground, you see, but it’s very close to the Nile. That area has been a problem in Cairo for generations. The water is leeching through the limestone and migrating under the city. We did research—no time to go into it all, but they’re using a series of locks on the river—the underground stream. All it will take is a little nudge, just as it should. The Pushpoint is one of the levers that opens the locks. We’re certain of it.”
“And these locks existed that long ago?” Paul had an incredulous look on his face.
“Only one,” LeGrand confirmed. “The others were built over the long generation as the river intruded on the location of their site. That’s why we’re sure of the Pushpoint. There’s only one lock at this target date.”
Silence enfolded the room, broken only by the hum of the lab consoles.
“Very well,” said Paul, looking at Maeve. “The others have just returned. I’ll go.”
LeGrand smiled warmly. “Very noble. It is just what we would expect of you,” he said. “But I’m afraid that your preparation might take more time than we have.” He eyed the clock again.
“But there’s already a quantum signature for me in our database here.” Paul repeated the logic that had led him to volunteer. “And Robert and Maeve have only just returned. They’ll need time to recover.”
“All true,” said LeGrand, “but first we would have to re-calibrate your signature, and then merge the data with the mission parameters we have programmed on the disk. There would be changes and, as Mister Ramer would be quick to point out, that would take computer time—more than we can spare.”
Kelly looked at him, a realization dawning in his eyes. “Then it’s me you want,” he said matter of factly. “You already have my signature encoded on the DVD, don’t you.”
LeGrand nodded, his breath abated, waiting as he watched the others for any sign of protest. Paul could see that his hand was shaking a bit as he fingered the hem of his gray cloak.
“Let’s get started then,” said Kelly. “You’ll have to resample my signature when I’m exposed to the particle stream, but if I know my methods and procedures like I think I’m going to, you’ll have an algorithm already encoded on the DVD to handle the data merge.”
“Precisely,” said LeGrand, greatly relieved.
Kelly was already edging his swivel chair up to the control console, all business. Maeve had a pleading expression on her face, close to tears, but she said nothing. There was a tense silence in the room. Kelly was opening the jewel case to remove the DVD while he toggled system switches.
“I’ll clear the necessary RAM,” he said. “Paul, would you check on the particle infusion chamber? I’m worried about the quantum fuel situation. Robert, you can be useful if you would get with Mister LeGrand here and figure out what I’m supposed to do. I’ll be half an hour here setting this thing up, and that won’t leave me much time…”
He looked at Maeve, and saw the tear streaking her cheek, his own eyes glassy as he swallowed hard. “And would you come down to the Arch with me, love?” His voice broke as he spoke those last words.
Robert leaned in to Paul. “Will it really be that dangerous?”
Paul just looked at him. Then he took him by the arm, walking him away from the lab console. “It’s like this,” he said softly. “If he’s fails the mission, we’re all exposed to Paradox, and who knows what will happen when the Nexus dissipates here in a few hours.”
“And if he succeeds?”
“In that event it will be Kelly’s fate on the line. The transformation he works will begin over 12,000 years ago, and ripple forward. It’s very likely that events will stand as we see them now, and there will be no attack at Palma by Ra’id Husan al Din. Understand? He’ll be the one exposed to Paradox again, just as he was after that first mission.”
“But we’ll still have the DVD,” said Robert. “And we published the whole thing to the web. If that survives, what’s the problem?”
“The DVD has location data for Kelly to be pulled from the lab on May 28th, 2010, at precisely 4:10 A.M. It’s September now, and he’ll be somewhere east of the Nile, in the year 10500 B.C.”
Robert’s eyes suddenly registered the dilemma. “Then the Order will just have to intervene again—like they did the last time. Don’t they have his coordinates on that DVD? I’ll speak to LeGrand!”
“Quiet down,” said Paul. He took a deep breath and looked his friend square in the face. “They would have to know exactly where he is—exactly—in both space and time, if they are to intervene again.”
“No problem,” Robert reached for one last rope, even though he could feel himself sinking into the realization of what Paul was driving at. “We’ll pull him back here and they can just scoop him from the Arch when he returns. That’s a location that we can cement in the history from this moment forward. I’ll resolve here and now to publish the exact coordinates, just like we did the DVD. As for the time, they will know that from our own system chronometers when he re-materializes here.”
Paul sighed, a look on his face that said he wished it all could be so. “He can’t re-materialize here,” he said, his eyes watering over. “We haven’t the quantum fuel to get him there and back again. Even the outbound shift is going to be cutting it very thin. Besides, this is a Nexus Point—a conditional Nexus, Robert. It is temporary. Time is waiting for the outcome. If he succeeds, and Palma never happens, then we never had a reason to run this mission. So the Nexus will dissipate rather quickly.“
“But we came back from the Hejaz on the first mission,” Robert protested.
“That was the first mission,” said Paul. “The initial breach of time was a grand event, a first cause, if you will. It was therefore not subject to the full weight of Paradox, and we were able to return because our place in the continuum was not altered. But that was not so for Kelly. If Palma doesn’t happen, then Graves never came back to save him, and Kelly is… gone… Nothing that fails to survive the Paradox sweep after Palma will survive in this Nexus when it dissipates. The Meridian we were in when we first returned from the Palma mission will be restored—only this time they won’t have Kelly tucked away safely in the future for us… And this time, when we stand at that memorial site to remember what he did for us, they’ll be no one to steal up behind us and dance on his own grave.”