Timeline. Part 60

Standing by the staircase leading down from the roof, Marek held his sword high. He killed the first soldier as he came out. He killed the second one, too, kicking the bodies as they fell, keeping the floor clear. The other soldiers on the stairs paused in confusion, and he heard muttering and consternation.

The drawbridge chain still rattled. The drawbridge continued down.

"Andre. Come on."

Marek glanced at his counter. It said 00:01:04. Just a little more than a minute, now. Looking out the window, he saw the others had not waited until the drawbridge was entirely down; they ran to the descending edge, and jumped out onto the field beyond the castle. Now he could hardly see them in the darkness.

"Andre." It was Chris again. "Andre."

Another soldier came down the stairs, and Marek swung his sword, which clanged against the winch, spitting sparks. The man hastily backed up, shouting and pus.h.i.+ng the others.

"Andre, run for it," Chris said. "You have time."

Marek knew that was true. He could just make it. If he left now, the men couldn't raise the drawbridge before he had run across it and was out on the plain with the others. He knew they were out there, waiting for him. His friends. Waiting to go back.

As he turned to go down the stairs, his glance fell on the old man, still cowering in the corner. Marek wondered what it must be like to live your entire life in this world. To live and love, constantly on the edge, with disease and starvation and death and killing. To be alive in this world.

"Andre. Are you coming?"

"There's no time," Marek said.

"Andre."

He looked out on the plain and saw successive flashes of light. They were calling the machines. Getting ready to go.

The machines were there. They were all standing on their platforms. Cold vapor was drifting from the bases, curling across the dark gra.s.s.

Kate said, "Andre, come on."

There was a short silence. Then: "I'm not leaving," Marek said. "I'm staying here."

"Andre. You're not thinking right."

"Yes, I am."

She said, "Are you serious?"

Kate looked at the Professor. He just nodded slowly.

"All his life, he's wanted this."

Chris put the ceramic marker in the slot at his feet.

Marek watched from the window of the gatehouse.

"Hey, Andre." It was Chris.

"See you, Chris."

"Take care of yourself."

"Andre." It was Kate. "I don't know what to say."

"Good-bye, Kate."

Then he heard the Professor say: "Good-bye, Andre."

"Good-bye," Marek said.

Through his earpiece, he heard a recorded voice say, "Stand still-eyes open-deep breath-hold it.... Now! Now!" On the plain, he saw a brilliant flash of blue light. Then there was another, and another, diminis.h.i.+ng in intensity, until there was nothing more.

Doniger strode back and forth across the darkened stage. In the auditorium, the three corporate executives sat silently, watching him.

"Sooner or later," he said, "the artifice of entertainment-constant, ceaseless entertainment-will drive people to seek authenticity. Authenticity Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that exists for its own sake, that a.s.sumes its own shape. And what is the most authentic of all? The past. will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that exists for its own sake, that a.s.sumes its own shape. And what is the most authentic of all? The past.

"The past is a world that already existed before Disney and Murdoch and British Telecom and Nissan and Sony and IBM and all the other shapers of the present. The past was here before they were. The past rose and fell without their intrusion and molding. The past is real. It's authentic. And this will make the past unbelievably attractive. And this will make the past unbelievably attractive. Because the past is the only alternative to the corporate present. Because the past is the only alternative to the corporate present.

"What will people do? They are already doing it. The fastest-growing segment of travel today is cultural tourism. People who want to visit not other places, but other times. People who want to immerse themselves in medieval walled cities, in vast Buddhist temples, Mayan pyramid cities, Egyptian necropolises. People who want to walk and be in the world of the past. The vanished world.

"And they don't want it to be fake. They don't want it to be made pretty, or cleaned up. They want it to be authentic. Who will guarantee that authenticity? Who will become the brand name of the past? ITC.

"I am about to show you," he said, "our plans for cultural tourism sites around the world. I will concentrate on one in France, but we have many others, as well. In every case, we turn over the site to the government of that country. But we own the surrounding territory, which means we will own the hotels and restaurants and shops, the entire apparatus of tourism. To say nothing of the books and films and guides and costumes and toys and all the rest. Tourists will spend ten dollars to get into the site. But they'll spend five hundred dollars in living expenses outside it. All that will be controlled by us." He smiled. "To make sure that it is executed tastefully, of course."

A graph came up behind him.

"We estimate that each site will generate in excess of two billion dollars a year, including merchandising. We estimate that total company revenues will exceed one hundred billion dollars annually by the second decade of the coming century. That is one reason for making your commitment to us.

"The other reason is more important. Under the guise of tourism, we are in effect building an intellectual brand name. Such brand names now exist for software, for example. But none exist for history. And yet history is the most powerful intellectual tool society possesses. Let us be clear. History is not a dispa.s.sionate record of dead events. Nor is it a playground for scholars to indulge their trivial disputes.

"The purpose of history is to explain the present-to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us why the things we value are the things we should value. And it tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power-profound power. The power to define a whole society.

"The future lies in the past-in whoever controls the past. Such control has never before been possible. Now, it is. We at ITC want to a.s.sist our clients in the shaping of the world in which we all live and work and consume. And in doing so, I believe we will have your full and wholehearted support."

There was no applause, just stunned silence. That was the way it always was. It took them a while to realize what he was saying. "Thanks for your attention," Doniger said, and strode off the stage.

"This better be good," Doniger said. "I don't like to cut a session like that short."

"It's important," Gordon said. They were walking down the corridor, toward the machine room.

"They're back?"

"Yes. We got the s.h.i.+elds working, and three of them are back."

"When?"

"About fifteen minutes ago."

"And?"

"They've been through a lot. One of them is pretty badly injured and will need hospitalization. The other two are okay."

"So? What's the problem?"

They went through a door.

"They want to know," Gordon said, "why they weren't told ITC's plans."

"Because it's none of their business," Doniger said.

"They risked their lives-"

"They volunteered."

"But they-"

"Oh, f.u.c.k them," Doniger said. "What is all this sudden concern? Who cares? They're a bunch of historians historians-they're all going to be out of a job, anyway, unless they work for me."

Gordon didn't answer. He was looking over Doniger's shoulder. Doniger slowly turned.

Johnston was standing there, and the girl, who now had her hair hacked short, and one of the men. They were dirty, ragged and covered in blood. They were standing by a video monitor, which showed the auditorium. The executives were now leaving the auditorium, the stage empty. But they must have heard the speech, or at least part of it.

"Well," Doniger said, suddenly smiling, "I'm very glad you are back."

"So are we," Johnston said. But he didn't smile.

No one spoke.

They just stared at him.

"Oh, f.u.c.k you people," he said. He turned to Gordon. "Why did you bring me here? Because the historians are upset? This is the future, whether they like it or not. I don't have time for this s.h.i.+t. I have a company to run."

But Gordon was holding a small gas cylinder in his hand. "There have been some discussions, Bob," he said. "We think someone more moderate should run the company now."

There was a hiss. Doniger smelled a sharp odor, like ether.

He awoke, hearing a loud humming, and what sounded like the scream of rending metal. He was inside the machine. He saw all of them staring at him from behind the s.h.i.+elds. He knew not to step out, not once it had started. He said loudly, "This isn't going to work," and then the violet flash of laser light blinded him. The flashes came quickly now. He saw the transit room rise up around him as he shrank-then the hissing foam as he descended toward it-then the final shriek in his ears, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

Blackness.

He heard the chirp of birds, and he opened his eyes. The first thing he did was look up at the sky. It was clear. So it wasn't Vesuvius. He was in a primeval forest with huge trees. So it wasn't Tokyo. The twittering of the birds was pleasant, the air warm. It wasn't Tunguska.

Where the h.e.l.l was he?

The machine rested at a slight angle; the forest ground sloped downward to the left. He saw light between the tree trunks, some distance away. He got out of the machine and walked down the slope. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the slow beat of a solitary drum.

He came to a break in the trees and looked down over a fortified town. It was partially obscured by the smoke of many fires, but he recognized it at once. Oh h.e.l.l, he thought, it's just Castelgard. What was the big deal, forcing him to come here?

It was Gordon, of course, who was behind it. That bulls.h.i.+t line about how the academics were disappointed. It was Gordon. The son of a b.i.t.c.h had been running the technology, and now he thought he could run the company, as well. Gordon had sent him back, thinking he couldn't return.

But Doniger could return, and he would. He wasn't worried, because he carried a ceramic with him at all times. He kept it in a slot in the heel of his shoe. He pulled the shoe off, and looked at the slot. Yes, the white ceramic was there. But it was pushed deep in the slot, and it seemed to be stuck there. When he shook the shoe, it didn't drop out. He tried a twig, poking in the slot, but the twig bent.

Next he tried to pull the heel off the shoe, but he couldn't get enough leverage; the heel stayed on. What he needed was a metal tool of some kind, a wedge or a chisel. He could find one in the town, he felt sure.

He put the shoe back on, stripped off his jacket and tie, and walked down the slope. Looking at the town, he noticed some odd details. He was just above the east gate in the town wall, but the gate was wide open. And there were no soldiers along the walls. That was odd. Whatever year this was, it was obviously a time of peace-there were those times, between English invasions. But still, he'd have thought the gate would always be guarded. He looked at the fields and saw no one tending them. They seemed neglected, with large clumps of weeds.

What the h.e.l.l? he thought.

He pa.s.sed through the gate and walked into the town. He saw that the gate was unguarded because the soldier on guard lay dead on his back. Doniger leaned over to look at him. There were bright streaks of blood coming from around his eyes. He must have been struck on the head, he thought.

He turned to the town itself. The smoke, he now saw, was issuing from little pots that had been placed everywhere-on the ground, on walls, or on fence posts. And the town seemed to be deserted, empty in the bright, sunny day. He walked to the market, but n.o.body was there. He heard the sound of monks chanting; they were coming toward him. And he heard the drum.

He felt a chill.

A dozen monks, all dressed in black, rounded the corner in a kind of procession, chanting. Half of them were stripped to the waist, las.h.i.+ng themselves with leather whips studded with bits of metal. Their shoulders and backs were bleeding freely.

Flagellants.

That was what they were, flagellants. Doniger gave a low moan and backed away from the monks, who continued past him in stately fas.h.i.+on, ignoring him. He continued to step away, farther and farther, until his back touched something wooden.

He turned and saw a wooden horse cart, but there was no horse. He saw bundles of cloth piled high on the cart. Then he saw a child's foot protruding from one of the bundles. A woman's arm from another. The buzzing of flies was very loud. A cloud of flies, swarming over the bodies.

Doniger began to s.h.i.+ver.

The arm had odd blackish lumps on it.

The Black Death.

He knew now what year it was. It was 1348. The year the plague first struck Castelgard and killed a third of the population. And he knew how it spread-by the bites of fleas, by touch and by air. Just breathing the air could kill you. He knew that it could kill swiftly, that people just fell over in the street. One minute you were perfectly fine. Then the coughing began, the headache. An hour later you were dead.

He had been very close to the soldier by the gate. He had been close to the man's face.

Very close.