The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection

Whending My Way Back Home ^{BILL JOHNSON}

“Damn it,” Ianna swore. “What’s she doing here?”

Ianna leaned forward and spat a mouthful of freshly chewed wheat gruel into a small stone starter bowl. She sipped from a water skin, washed out her mouth, and spat again on top of the mash.

“Mix and warm,” Martin reminded her. She sighed, rolled her eyes at him, and wiped the sweat off her forehead. She reached into the bowl and kneaded the mixture. It was, Martin knew, both disgusting and oddly satisfying, the wet and smooth texture working together, slipping over and under and through the fingers.

Ianna finished and shook her hands free. She scraped the last of the mash off her fingers, back into the bowl, then used a shaped piece of gazelle bone to scoop a handful of stones from the fire. She propped the stones next to the bowl, to keep the starter mash warm. She wiped her hands clean with a handful of fresh reeds.

“Now,” Martin asked. “What’s the problem?”

Ianna tipped her chin to the north, at the silhouette of a woman coming down the slope of the valley. From the distance, she looked like anyone coming back from a hunt. Martin stood.

The stranger just sent out a broadcast to every Traveler. She’s going to work her way through the camp, to meet everyone, one at a time, Artie told him. She’s telling them to keep it quiet, so the locals don’t notice anything.

“So,” Martin said out loud, to both of them. He glanced over at Ianna. “She’s not what she looks like.”

“No,” Ianna said.

“Details,” Martin ordered.

Artie sharpened Martin’s vision, stretched it like a pair of binoculars. A small display with translucent numbers opened in the lower right of his vision.

Ianna and the rest of the Travelers scattered through the camp were Maxyes tribal, downtiming from the University in Qart-hadast. They were relatively short compared to the native hunter-gatherer’s. Ianna was only five foot two and she was middle height for the women. She grew her dark hair long on the right side of her head, tied up in a twisted bun, and shaved her hair close on her left side. She used native ochre—yellow, red and brown—as eye and face makeup.

The stranger, even from a distance, was clearly not a Maxyes. Long hair on both sides of her face, dirty blonde and pulled back and out of the way in an interlaced rope style. Clear skin, no ochre or any other markings. And she was tall. Artie’s display said she was five foot nine. Martin turned his eyes back to normal.

“Tribe?” Martin asked Ianna. “Nation?”

“Alemanni of some kind,” Ianna said, dismissively. “You can tell by looking at her. She’s probably with their Volks Wachter. The Kehin use her sometimes, to tell us things that need to be kept private. They’re afraid to come back along the timelines, so they send her.”

She looked up at Martin.

“Who does the Chayil use? To tell you things? Is it a person… or something different?”

“Something different,” Martin said absently. He thought for a moment, then turned to Ianna.

“And you should always speak of the Kehin with respect,” Martin warned her. “What if one of the others heard you? What if I—officially—heard you?”

“The army protects its own,” Ianna said. “And I’m with you.”

Martin shook his head.

“The army protects the generals. So the priests don’t mess with the generals,” Martin said. He tapped himself on the chest. “But I’m not a general. And neither are you.”

Ianna looked frightened for a moment, then ducked her head and nodded. Martin turned back, but the messenger was down the slope and gone, lost in the flows of people and the mixed-together jumble of tents and shelters and travel lodges.

This means trouble, Artie said gloomily. Martin shrugged and turned away and sat back on his stone work bench.

“Keep your mouth shut and don’t broadcast,” Martin warned Artie in silent. “We’ll get through this.”

“I’m not going to say anything,” he assured Ianna, out loud. He smiled and remembered an old joke from his future.

“What happens in Gobekli, stays in Gobekli.”

Ianna frowned at him, confused, then shook her head, and sat down across from him. She picked up the half-finished mat she had been working on.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And Mar, don’t take this personal, but, sometimes,” she said, hesitated, then rushed forward. “You’re just weird.”

If only she knew, Artie grumbled mournfully. If only she knew….

Martin grunted and concentrated on the fist-sized piece of flint in his hand. He turned the rock from side to side. Satisfied, he leaned forward and braced it against his work anvil, a large boulder with a flat top, and carefully struck the flint along a fault line with his soft hammer. A side piece cracked off. He gently and carefully picked up the new piece and felt the slick sharp edge. It still needed a little work to fix the final shape, but that would be easy.

“Perfect,” he said, satisfied. Artie looked through his eyes.

I’m so very proud of you.

Artie did not sound proud. He sounded sarcastic, like a sick old man, crotchety and uncertain and irritated. Martin ignored him and added the new arrow head to the hide pouch on the ground at his feet.

“Until the beer is ready, we still have to eat,” Martin reminded Artie, unperturbed, in silent mode. He checked the pouch, counted. He looked up and saw Ianna walking up from the river, a pair of skin water bags in her hands. He got up and helped her carry them inside their hut. She smiled at him and sat back on her bench. He held up one of the arrow heads.

“Eabani told me yesterday that he needed to trade. He’s back fresh from a hunt. Mostly gazelle. A few aurochs. I figure I can trade three of these to get us enough meat for today and tomorrow.”

Ianna shook her head.

“Good try, but it won’t work. I ran into Eabani down at the river.”

“And?”

“He’s going on a long trip,” she said, carefully. “A long, long trip. He’ll be gone for quite a while.”

He met the woman. The messenger, Artie said on open. Ianna nodded. She held her finger to her lips, touched her head, and spoke out loud.

“Her name, here, is Tiamat,” Ianna said. “She won’t tell anyone what her name is back home.”

“Maybe she’s in trouble back there.”

“Maybe.” Ianna sounded uncertain. “Eabani couldn’t get much out of her.” She studied Martin.

“You sure you’ve never had to deal with her?”

“No,” Martin said. He dropped the arrow head back into the pouch and picked up his raw flint rock.

“Everyone deals with her,” Ianna said with certainty.

“Not me,” Martin said.

“Have I ever told you there’s something wrong with you?” Ianna asked.

“You may have mentioned that once or twice,” Martin acknowledged. “Still haven’t dealt with her.”

“Well, you’re going to get your chance,” Ianna said. She tilted her head toward the rough path that led up the hill toward the temple.

Tiamat walked along the path, toward a part of the camp where a new tribe had arrived last night. She glanced at Ianna and Martin, then at the newcomers. She held up a finger, nodded to Ianna, then picked up her pace toward the new arrivals.

“But not just yet,” Ianna said.

Martin used his fingers to scoop up a fresh mouthful of gruel from the cooking bowl, carefully kept separate from the starter bowl. He chewed it slowly and focused on Tiamat as she walked past them. He concentrated on her clothes, the gear she carried, the way she walked, the way she looked.

Everything about her, from her hair to her animal skin clothes to the way she moved, was perfect. She blended into the camp like a drop of water into a river.

Which was a mistake.

Perfection, of any kind, was an error. Real people, native people, in any timeline, made mistakes. Real people weren’t perfect. Real people always had something out of place, something that wasn’t quite right. Real life forced mistakes and compromises, smudges and dirty hands.

Martin saw the locals, the ones who lived in this place and time, look up as she walked by. Something about her was wrong, something about her disturbed them. She was just too damned perfect.

He spat the chewed gruel into the starter bowl, added a mouthful of water.

“Time to check the beer.”

Ianna stood and stepped up and out into the sun. There were three whitewashed limestone vessels, shaped roughly like horse water troughs, just outside the shelter. Each was hollowed out to hold about one hundred liters of liquid. The first vessel was full, covered with a lid of interlaced green grass, close to ready. The second held a few liters of thin amber starter liquid. The third was empty.

Ianna went to the first vessel, slid the cover to the side. Martin, from several feet away, still winced at the sharp odor, an unpleasant mix of sour and sickly sweet. Ianna hastily pulled the lid back into place.

“That batch is going to be vile. The brewers in Alemania are cursing you from their great-grandmother’s wombs.”

Martin shrugged and leaned back on his heels under the shadow of their hide canopy. He looked around the rest of the camp. Hundreds of tents and travel lodges, even more men and women, worshipers and slaves, traders and priests and hunters, with the constant ebb and flow of small children and dogs, laughing and barking and chasing each other.

“If it’s strong enough, they’ll drink it anyway,” he said. She looked at the vessel doubtfully, then over at him. He relented.

“Add some of that honey we traded for this morning. And more of the wild grapes. Crush them up first. Give it a good stir. We’ll cut back on the hawthorn berries on the second batch. And, just maybe, Artie can keep a better watch on the temperature this time.”

I’m doing the best I can, Artie said defensively. He coughed, even though he had no lungs and no body. I’m dying, you know.

Ianna tended to the beer. Martin turned his attention back to the original piece of flint in his hand. It was getting small. He idly wondered if he should go for a knife or a spear point with what was left. A knife would get them more food from a hunting party, but a knife needed a handle. Or he could get two spear points out of what was left. Were two spear points worth more than a good knife? Maybe if he wrapped leather around the handle before he sold the knife. A finished product should be worth more than a bare knife blade. Or, maybe, he should just go for more arrowheads….

Knife, Artie said, in silent. Definitely. And add a decorative design on the leather. The theme for this circle and the Tall Men is the hunter and the phallus. Draw a crocodile on one side of the handle, a naked man on the other. Then trade the knife to one of the priests.

“Why a priest?” Martin asked, out loud.

Ianna looked over at him.

Shut up! Artie snapped, in silent. Remember where you are, now, and where she’s going to be from, then. Qart-hadast is still a city of priests in the future, even in the university. You want to end up in front of a court of the Kehin?

“Apologies,” Martin said toward Ianna, but really to Artie.

Eabani is going home, back uptime, so we need a local hunter, Artie explained, patiently.

“Buyuwawa,” Martin said, in silent. “Eabani’s been teaching him. He’ll take over. And he’s local.”

Fine. Buyuwawa, then. Tell the local priest he gets the knife if he gives Buyuwawa a blessing before he goes on a hunt. Tell Buyuwawa he gets the blessing if he gives you a bigger share of the meat from the hunt. Artie sounded exasperated. Didn’t they teach you any economics where you come from?

“No,” Martin said out loud.

Ianna glanced over at him.

“You’re talking to him again.” She sounded just as irritated as Artie. “It’s bad manners to talk to your Artie without letting other Travelers listen in.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Classified talk.”

“You’ve been out here alone too long,” she said, sympathetically. “You need to go uptime and spend some time with a hot shower, an oculus and a good food printer.” She moved closer to him, pressed up against his side. “Maybe with a warm partner.”

“My contract with the Chayil,” he lied, apologetically.

Ianna was Qart-hadast wins Cannae, Hannibal burns Rome, timeline. The rest of the Travelers in the camp were from the same base timeline with different, minor, variations.

You lying bastard, Artie said, admiringly, in silent. You make it look so easy. I want you to program that into my if-then.

“Not a chance,” Martin replied, in silent. He smiled sincerely at Ianna.

“I can’t leave until I get new orders,” he said to her.

Martin, on the other hand, was always deliberately vague about his homepoint. It was better to let her make assumptions. The fewer lies he told, the better. Easier to keep things straight.

“Perhaps there’s some place we can meet, when your contract is over?” Ianna asked, hopefully. She reached down and rubbed his leg.

“Some place uptime? Some place with a bath tub? And hot water?”

“Yes!”

He shrugged. He looked past her, up toward the plateau and the temple and the Great Circle. The tops of several pillars were just visible. The Tall Men were not up yet.

“Maybe we can work that out. In the meantime…,” he said. He stood and put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her up to her feet. He glanced at the camp, toward where Tiamat had stepped out of sight.

“It will take her at least an hour to work her way here,” Ianna said. “She’ll talk to at least three other Travelers before she reaches us.”

“Well, then,” Martin said. He pushed the hut’s gazelle skin privacy curtain aside. The inside of the hut was dim, not dark, and the pile of grasses they used as a bed was clearly visible in the back. “Perhaps we should enjoy the moment.”

“What about the beer?”

“Artie can take care of the beer.”

This is not fair, Artie protested.

“Yes, he can,” she said, and grinned. She turned and led him by the hand into the room. Martin pulled the leather flap closed behind them.

I certainly hope she knows how this works, Artie said morosely, in silent. Because we sure as hell don’t.

Martin caught sight of Tiamat when she was about five minutes away.

Her skin was hunter browned, colored by sun and wind. Her legs were long and muscled. She carried a flint-tipped spear over her shoulder and a knife tucked into her belt.

She wore a loincloth and tied-on animal skin leggings. This time her hair was tucked under a broad-brimmed straw hat. Her shoes were leather sandals, held together by a bark-skin net which tied tightly around and over her ankles. A decorative bandeau, hand knotted into a geometric pattern and decorated with stone beads and feathers, rested on top of her breasts. A gazelle skin cape and a wood and hide backpack finished her clothing.

“I want one of those,” Ianna whispered in Martin’s ear as Tiamat walked up to them. They were back outside, on their benches under the canopy in the work room. “The bandeau. It will make me very happy.”

And if you make her happy, she’ll make you happy, Artie snapped, in silent. Yes, yes, we all know how this works. Bio’s. If you thought more with your brains and less with your—

Tiamat stopped just outside their canopy. Her head tipped up when Artie spoke and her eyes seemed to focus on a spot in the air up and behind Martin.

“I agree,” Tiamat said, in silent.

Shit! Artie said. He sounded surprised and afraid. Ianna can’t hear me in silent, but—

“Then I suggest you stay quiet,” Martin interrupted sharply, also in silent mode. He looked up at Tiamat. He kept a firm grip on the half-finished flint knife, all that was left of the stone, in his hand.

“Ianna,” Tiamat said calmly. Her voice was a pleasant mezzo-soprano, bureaucratically neutral and professional, like an AI voice.

“I’m here to inform you that your time, along with all the other Travelers in the camp, is now complete. Please gather your things. Six months present time minimum until you can come back here. A year would be better.”

“When do I have to leave?”

“Now.”

Ianna looked surprised, then stubborn.

“You can’t order me around!”

Tiamat just stared at her for a moment. Her expression froze and a muscle hardened in her jaw as she visibly worked to control herself.

It’s more than that, Artie said, puzzled. He used a different cipher to talk with Martin privately. Martin recognized the cipher. It was more secure than their usual private mode, but it took more processing cycles. The problem was, this timeline was inherently poisonous to Artie. Part of him was in phase-shift but part of him was anchored in Martin. More cycles meant more of him into Martin and more exposure to this timeline.

Which meant Artie was dying faster.

“Don’t do this,” Martin said.

Shut up, Artie snapped. Switch to the new cipher for private. I don’t trust her. And I promised to watch over you.

“Artie—”

I always keep my promises.

This time Tiamat looked at Martin suspiciously, as if she heard Artie but did not know what he said. She hesitated, then concentrated back on Ianna.

“You’re right,” Tiamat said calmly to Ianna. “I can’t order you around. Tell you what. Stay right here. I’ll come back tomorrow. We’ll talk again. If you’re still here.”

Ianna suddenly looked afraid.

“It’s that big of a change?”

“Yes.”

“I thought the worst was that I might be stranded in a different, similar, timeline,” Ianna argued. “Then all I have to do is wait until the next change nexus and I could slip back home.”

“Usually, that’s possible,” Tiamat admitted. She sounded bored, as if this was an old argument, one she had already gone over several times. “But this one is different. With this one, if you stay, you may not find another change nexus that leads home.”

“So what are my chances if I stay another day?”

Tiamat’s face went still, absent, for a moment. Then she was back.

“Your uncertainty factor is going up rapidly. If you stay, you may be here tomorrow. Or you may be… gone.”

“Gone,” Ianna said slowly.

“Gone,” Tiamat said briskly. “Don’t ask me where or when. I don’t know. Just… gone.”

Ianna glanced at Martin.

“What about him?”

Tiamat hesitated. Martin realized that, under the dirt, her skin was flushed, almost feverish. And her eyes were wrong, slightly off focus. She leaned from one side to another, as if it was difficult to keep her balance.

“What’s your name?” Tiamat demanded. “You’re not on my list.”

“Call me Mar.”

“That’s a Canaanite name. Old school. Your family is from Byblos?”

Martin shrugged.

“It’s the name I use.”

“You’re not on my list,” Tiamat repeated, peevishly.

“He’s military. He’s with the Chayil,” Ianna said, anxiously. Tiamat looked at Martin suspiciously.

“My contract is with the Kehin. They said nothing about any Chayil Travelers in this timezone.”

“Since when,” Martin said, carefully, his voice pitched low, “does the army report to the priests?”

Tiamat hesitated. In every Qart-hadast timeline there was constant tension between the Kehin and the Chayil, the priests and the army. Tiamat pulled out her knife from her belt, turned it so the handle was toward Martin.

Handle is double purpose, Artie announced. Inside is a quantum retro-causality analyzer. She wants to check you out.

“Two can play that game,” Martin said, in silent. “Tag her.”

You sure?

“Tag her.”

Martin reached out carefully. He made sure his fingers lightly brushed Tiamat’s wrist as he took the knife.

Done.

Martin examined the knife. To all the natives in the camp it looked as if the new hunter was having a chip in her blade looked at by their best flint knapper.

He studied it for a moment, nodded, handed it back to Tiamat. He held out his new, half-finished, knife blade. She made a show of studying it. Finally, she nodded and handed him back the unfinished blade as well as several strips of trail jerky.

Good showmanship, Artie admitted. She’s done this before. Everyone thinks she has just bought herself a new knife when you finish it.

“He’s got to leave also,” Tiamat said stubbornly.

And now we know she can lie, Artie said.

“He has less uncertainty than you,” Tiamat said, grudgingly. “He can stay a little longer. But you have to go now.”

Martin reached over, touched Ianna’s shoulder.

“You go. I’ll only stay a little while, to take care of our things,” he assured her. “I’ll tell Buyuwawa and our other local friends we’ve got to go to Lake Van to harvest more wheat. They’ll watch our beer vats while we’re gone. The rest of the stuff I’ll just give away or bury. We’ll be fine. I’ll meet you uptime. We’ll find that tub and the hot water.”

“But what if we get separated? What if we both can’t come back at the same time?”

Martin held his hands apart.

“What is, is. But you heard her. Our odds are good. But we’ve got to take care of you, first. Now.”

Ianna closed her eyes, then nodded. She leaned close to Martin.

“My name, back home, is Monica,” she said in a soft rush. “Try to find me. I live on the south side of Qart, near the university. I’ll try to come back but, my grant…” She hesitated. “You know faculty politics.”

You don’t know a damned thing about faculty politics, Artie snorted.

“Shut up,” Martin said in silent. He smiled and nodded to Ianna.

She turned and ducked into their hut. She came back a moment later, her few possessions tucked into a bent wood backpack, her datapad carefully disguised as a carefully polished stone rectangle.

Ianna looked at Martin, uncertainly. He reached down and picked up the arrowhead pouch.

“I wasn’t expecting this. I don’t have anything to give you,” he said. He pulled out an arrowhead and handed it to her.

“Don’t say it that way,” she said, miserable. “It will all work out.”

I think she’s actually going to miss you, Artie said, surprised.

“Shut up,” Martin said, in silent, to Artie. He turned his attention to Ianna.

“I’ll remember you,” he said.

Liar, Artie said, tiredly, in silent. Then he relented. Well, maybe. I’ll help with that. As long as I can.

Ianna hesitated, then took the arrowhead and tucked it carefully away in her pocket. She leaned forward, kissed Martin, and stepped back, to the edge of the canopy shade, and turned to face Tiamat.

“If he’s hurt, Qart-hadast will not be pleased.”

“You speak for all of Qart-hadast?” Tiamat asked with mild disinterest.

“I have connections!”

“I’m sure you do,” Tiamat said dismissively.

Ianna started to walk away but stopped, her back to Martin and Tiamat. She began to turn back toward them.

“Your uncertainty just increased,” Tiamat called out to her. “I suggest you keep moving.”

Ianna shook her head and walked down the hill.

She’s crying, Artie said.

And Ianna was gone.

“There will be a man named Tom Cahill,” Martin said in silent mode to Artie. “He’s going to say that a journey is measured in friends.”

Then we’ve come a long way, Artie said. And we’ve got one hell of a long way to go.

Martin nodded. He turned his attention to Tiamat.

“Come in, get out of the sun. You don’t look so good,” Martin said. He stepped back to give Tiamat room. She ducked her head under the canopy and sat opposite him.

“Water?” he asked and held up a small leather water skin. Tiamat nodded and took a drink. She handed the flask back.

“Ianna is a meaningless little fool. But she likes you,” Tiamat said, tiredly. It sounded like an accusation but it came out as a simple statement. Martin decided this was not the time to be offended.

“So what does that make me?”

“A mystery,” Tiamat said. She smiled for the first time.

“And you hate mysteries?”

“And I hate mysteries.”

“So. What do you want to know?” Martin asked.

Tiamat spoke to Martin but her eyes ignored him. She concentrated on everything else in the shelter. Martin knew she was taking an inventory and comparing it to what the archeologists had found in the area around Gobekli Tepe, thousands of years in the future.

“Take your time,” he said, calmly. “No rush. This place is clean, and so am I. No metals. No plastic. Nothing but stone and wood and bone and leather. Everything organic will decay. The stone is authentic, from right around here, and the chips will join all the rest of the garbage when the People bury the temple.”

Tiamat ignored him.

She doesn’t trust you, Artie said. I can feel her. She’s using her eyes but she’s also scanning the area to see if it matches the historical records.

“Trust, but verify,” Martin said in silent mode.

I don’t know the reference, Artie said, apologetically.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Martin said. “No one will yet.”

Tiamat relaxed and turned her attention to Martin.

“You’re clean,” she said, reluctantly. “No violations.”

“I’m careful,” Martin said. Tiamat nodded.

“Now,” she said. Martin heard the bureaucrat in her voice. He imagined her sitting back in an office chair in an uptime cubicle, her datapad in her lap.

“Project name?”

“You won’t find any reference to it,” Martin warned. “It’s a dark project and it’s buried.”

“Try me anyway. I can be very persuasive.”

“Stone Eagle.”

“Really?” she asked, skeptical. He pointed to the meter square limestone slab propped up against the outside of the hut. It showed a stylized engraving of a bird, claws outstretched.

“Not as sharp as a holo, but that might be a violation, don’t you think?” Martin asked, sardonically.

“Do it yourself?”

“A friend did it,” Martin said evasively. “I put it up outside my shelter, wherever I go. Lets people know I’m at home.”

“Speaking of home,” Tiamat asked. “What’s your homeline?”

“Qart-hadast is my capital,” Martin lied. “Long ago and far away from here.”

Tiamat frowned.

Stop being a smart ass! Artie scolded. I know you’ve dealt with police before. She might not be in uniform but I suggest you start thinking of her that way.

Martin ignored him. He smiled back at Tiamat.

“Now it’s my turn,” Martin said. “You ever run into any leakers? From other timelines?”

“A few,” Tiamat admitted. “A very few. And the timelines are not very different. Their home timeline might be one where Qart-hadast was destroyed by an earthquake or a fire. Usually the capital just moves west, to Gades, but civilization stays the same. They never seem to be able to go home. We help them.”

“Kehin help? I’ve heard of it,” Martin said drily. “Think I’ll take care of myself, thank you.”

“My turn,” Tiamat said. “You work for the Chayil?”

“Classified.”

She made a note.

“And you’re back here for…?”

“Beer.”

“Really.” Tiamat did not sound impressed. She sounded skeptical. “Beer?”

“Beer,” Martin said promptly. He knew his cover story was solid. He gestured at the stone vessels, the grain, the empty fruit and honey bowls.

“Explain.”

“People like to drink beer,” Martin said. He spread his hands wide. “Gives me a good excuse to be up and moving around, to explore and talk with different people and different tribes. It’s as simple as that.”

“You’re looking for something.”

“Classified.”

“What’s this got to do,” Tiamat waved her hand at the outside, at the camp and then down the path and up the hill, toward the temple several miles away, “with Gobekli Tepe?”

Martin smiled.

“Classified.”

Tiamat frowned.

Got her, Artie said. Blood pressure up, temperature up, heartbeat up. You’ve got her irritated.

Tiamat stood.

“You need to go back up-time. Your uncertainty factor is going up,” she said sharply.

So much for your inimitable charm.

“I have never seen a causality detector like yours,” Martin said, casually.

Tiamat smiled down at him.

“Classified.”

Martin laughed. He leaned back.

“I think I might stay around for a while.”

“Not safe. You need to get the hell out of here.”

Liar, Artie said. She didn’t get a damned thing off you. She just wants you gone.

“I have some things I need to finish,” Martin said.

“And those things are…?”

“Classified.”

“Of course,” Tiamat said. She turned to leave. “Just remember, if you stay here, you may just be… gone.”

“Classified. And I can take care of myself.”

“Go to hell!” Tiamat snapped. She ducked under the canopy and stormed down the hill away from Martin. He waited until she was just far enough away, then went to low power mode.

“Do you have a lock on her?”

I can follow her wherever she goes, Artie reassured him.

“Good. What about her causality detector?”

I can use it.

“Scan her.”

Silence. Martin idly watched a little girl across the way. She was dressed in a gazelle skin and held a black and white puppy. The girl and the dog squatted in the dirt, both of their heads cocked to the side, intently studying a baby in a reed basket. A young woman, probably the mother to all of them, sat nearby and worked on rolling blades of prairie grass together to make string. She looked up, saw the girl and the dog, smiled, and gently rocked the basket.

“Life could be worse,” Martin said to himself.

Got it, Artie said. He whistled, low and slow. Martin tried to remember when he had programmed that if-then into Artie. Or maybe it was an imitation sub-routine.

She’s high, Artie said. Her future is very uncertain. Something is going to happen to her.

Martin studied Tiamat as she walked away, as she ducked around a tent and was gone.

“Watch her,” Martin ordered. “When it happens—before it happens—I want to know.”

And?

“And she has a nice ass,” he commented.

Bio’s!

Martin stepped over to the beer vat, pulled the lid aside, winced at the smell. He poked a hole through the scum on top, dipped in a small cup. The beer underneath was a nice golden hue, despite the odor. He hastily fit the rushes back in place.

“That really is bad,” he admitted.

Sometimes I’m glad I can’t smell things.

“Culture level?”

A good batch, Artie said, smugly. The dirt from that last batch of wheat was just what we needed. Good fungus in it.

Martin shook his head.

“I’m going to see Buyuwawa and the others,” he said. “I still have to eat and I need to fix this batch, fruit and mash up the second batch and start number three. Watch the place while I’m gone.”

Bring us back another partner. Asherah, Buyuwawa’s daughter, likes you. What about her? Or Mitelek? He’s strong.

“Not yet,” Martin said. He shook his head. “Give me a little time.”

You liked Ianna.

“I did,” Martin admitted. He walked into the crowd. He limped away, sore off his left foot from a blister. His fingernails were stained. He was just a little too tall, and clumsy, and he needed to gain ten pounds.

He was anything but perfect. And no one noticed him at all.

“Go into self-diagnostic mode,” Martin called back. “Check whatever Ianna left behind. See if you can use any of it to fix some of your problems.”

You want me to steal from her?

“Don’t think of it as stealing,” Martin said. He stepped around the first shelter and out of sight of the Stone Eagle.

“Think of it as creative scrounging.”

Wake up.

Martin opened his eyes just a slit and stretched, as if he was still asleep. His hand slipped under the pile of grass and rushes he used as a pillow and gripped his knife.

“What?”

You’re fine, Artie reassured him hurriedly. No danger.

“Then why the hell did you wake me up? I’m tired.”

It’s Tiamat. She’s dying.

Martin sat up and adjusted his eyes to night vision. Everything became a soft, oddball green, with rounded edges instead of sharp, straight lines.

“Where is she?”

Outside. In her tent. Down the hill.

“Let her live or let her die? Give me the numbers.”

Artie thought for a moment.

Just not enough data, he said regretfully. Does she turn us in to the Kehin? Does she ask too many questions and get the Chayil interested in this agent of theirs that they know nothing about? Does she help us? Can’t tell you. Just don’t know enough about her. She’s sure as hell not in the records. And I don’t have the if-then for this.

Martin sat for a moment. He heard a steady rain against the wall of his hut. The banked fire in the middle of the floor put out just enough heat to keep him warm. Outside, he heard the wind. It sounded cold and sharp.

“If I leave her out there, what happens?”

Her temperature is rising, Artie said. If I use that stupid Fahrenheit scale you taught me she’s already over 102 degrees and rising. Rapidly.

“She’ll die,” he said, resignedly.

She’ll die, Artie agreed.

Martin swore, then sat up and put on his clothes. He laced up his shoes, stood, and stoked the fire with fresh wood and dried dung. He put on his hat and his cape.

“I hate this,” he announced to the empty air, and stepped out of his shelter.

Cold rain struck the side of his face. He kept his head down, let his hat take the brunt of the wind.

Left, Artie instructed him. Now right. Around Miskit’s shelter. Ignore the dog. The dog keeps going for you? I don’t care. Kick the damned dog! We’ve got to keep moving.

She’s dying…

Tiamat’s tent was down, knocked over by the wind. Little streams of water ran over the skins. Tiamat was just another lump under the material, soaking in the mud. Martin threw everything aside and dug her out. Her clothes were plastered to her body, slick with sweat and mud. He knelt, draped her over his shoulder, and folded his cape around her. She mumbled something unclear and held on desperately. She felt hot and feverish and she shook with shivering. He got ready to stand up.

Wait, Artie said. There’s her grain. In that bag to your right. Just by your hand. Open it. Run your fingers through it.

“I don’t have time for that!”

Do it anyway, Artie ordered. You don’t have time not to do it.

Martin cursed, opened the pouch, spilled the grain over his hand.

Triticum monococcum—einkorn wheat, Artie said. He hesitated. Good, good… Damn!

“What?”

I hoped, but… None of it contains TmHKT1;5-A.

Martin stood. His knees creaked. Tiamat groaned. She was definitely up-time. She weighed too damned much.

“Next time,” Martin promised Artie. “We’re going to find it. I promise.”

I just hoped… I thought that, maybe…

Martin put his head down. He concentrated on the ground, on the mud and the rocks and one foot in front of the other. Uphill and downhill, slip and slide, almost down in the mud, rain in his eyes, a loose leather strap whipping his side in the wind, and uphill again.

You’re home.

Martin pushed aside the privacy curtain and the night drape, laid Tiamat next to the fire, and pulled the drape and curtain back to block off the rain and the wind. He collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily, and let his eyesight come back to normal.

“Symptoms?”

Fever. Buboes. Armpit, groin, neck. Chills. No sign of necrosis, yet, but it’s coming on fast.

“Plague,” Martin said. He spat.

Plague, Artie agreed flatly. Damned fleas. Doesn’t match—exactly—the modern bubonic, but it’s close enough.

“Stop any seizures. And wake her up enough so she’ll listen to me.”

It’s going to hurt, Artie warned. She isn’t going to like it.

“Tough,” Martin said. He reached for a jug of fresh beer, the terrible stuff, and a handful of reed straws. He pulled the plug out of the top of the stone vessel and pushed the straws through the top scum into the beer underneath. He moved up close to Tiamat, held her head in his lap. Her eyelids flickered and opened.

“What the hell are you doing to me?” she whispered. Her voice was low and hoarse and he could tell her throat hurt. She sounded confused, uncertain.

“Drink,” he ordered, and pushed the straws into her mouth. “Artie, help her.”

But, her AI—

“Will lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. Do it. Now.”

Tiamat tried to turn her head away, then drew up suddenly, as Artie pulled her diaphragm and tightened her throat muscles. Beer filled her mouth and dribbled down her lips and neck. She gagged. Martin kept her head forced down on the straws with one hand. She struggled but was too weak to get away from him.

“More,” he ordered, and tilted the jar with his other hand. “Or Artie will help you again.”

Tiamat closed her eyes, and forced herself to drink more.

Enough, Artie said. We don’t want her to get diarrhea.

Martin eased the straws out of Tiamat’s mouth, laid her down on the bed. He stripped her naked, quickly and efficiently and tossed her wet clothes next to the fire. He dried her off and tucked her under a heavy bearskin blanket.

“Poppy juice?”

Just a bit, Artie agreed, grudgingly. It will help with the muscle pain.

Martin reached across the bed for another jar, opened it, scooped out a thin, white oil. He felt Tiamat shiver again. He shook her gently until her eyes opened, blearily.

“Open up,” Martin ordered Tiamat.

“No more, please…”

“Shut up. This is something different.”

She opened her mouth. Martin dabbed her lips with poppy paste.

“Lick it off.”

She licked her lips in tiny, little jerks, as if she fell asleep between each move. Or as if she was too weak to do any more each time.

“Whatever it was you made me drink, it smelled terrible,” she said, in a low, cracked, feverish, voice.

“Not worried about that,” Martin said. “How did it taste?”

“Not bad,” she admitted. “Sweet. Fizzy. A little metallic. I think I’m catching a buzz.”

“The buzz is the beer and the opium. The metallic means you got a good dose of the right stuff. Go to sleep.”

Tiamat nodded, her eyes half closed. Her head turned slightly to the side. She began to whisper to herself, the words slurred. Something sounded familiar. Martin leaned forward to listen, then leaned back and looked thoughtful.

What’s wrong?

“It’s a bedtime prayer. The kind you teach a child to say every night, before they go to sleep.”

And… what’s wrong with that?

“Amplify.”

“… Angele Dei, qui custos es mei, Me tibi comissum pietate superna; Hodie, Hac nocte illumina, custodi, rege, et guberna. Amen.”

That’s Latin. A Christian prayer in Latin.

“Yep.”

Carthage destroys Rome in all of the timelines we’ve found here. Long before Christianity. That prayer does not exist here. That prayer will never exist here, anytime or anywhen.

“Yep.”

Now, isn’t that special? Artie asked thoughtfully. Our little Kehin spy seems to be a leaker…

The next day, the rain was gone.

Martin sat outside, in his workroom. The hut door was open. He saw Tiamat inside. She breathed slowly, but steadily, the blanket pushed aside.

“Used the handle on her yet?” Martin asked.

Yes.

“And?”

Her uncertainty is greatly reduced, Artie said.

“She was supposed to die last night.”

Maybe, Artie admitted. She still has some uncertainty. Not much new data yet, but her line is starting to trend up.

“How long until she’s a nexus again?”

Five months? Six months? Can’t be certain.

“Can we use her?”

Not if she’s dead, Artie warned. She’s still sick.

Martin stood, headed for the hut.

“Then we better keep her alive. I’m getting tired of this place.”

Martin sat in the hut. He used a piece of antler to pressure flake the new knife, to sharpen the edge. The handle was now wrapped in leather and decorated on both sides. The priest only charged one arrow head for the blessing.

“You’re good at that.”

“Thanks,” Martin said. He did not look down at her. Instead, he held up the knife into a shaft of sunlight that fell through the vent opening in the roof. He squinted at the edge and turned the knife back and forth. Sunlight reflected off the shiny grey-black blade and danced on the inside walls of the hut. Satisfied, he put the knife down and turned to face her.

“Lots of practice?” she asked.

“Years.”

“How many years?” Tiamat asked.

“That’s classified,” Martin said slowly. “Perhaps.”

Tiamat studied his face. She tried to sit up, fell back, tried again and managed to prop herself on one elbow. She felt weak and sore and drawn out. She glanced over at the beer jar. Martin passed her the jar, a strip of beef jerky, and a fresh straw.

Another couple of days, Artie said, in silent. Just to be safe. She’s probably cured now, but just to be safe.

“Question time,” Martin said. He kept his hand on the knife.

“All right.”

“What is your real name? I know it’s not Tiamat, so don’t try that on me.”

“I talked while I was sick.”

You babbled like a toddler with her favorite doll, Artie said. He did not bother with silent mode.

Tiamat sat quiet for a long moment. Finally she nodded to herself and looked up at Martin.

“Est nomen meum Rachel.”

My name is Rachel, Artie said, satisfied, in silent. Latin combined with a Hebrew name. Damned certain she’s not from here. Called it.

“You ready?” Martin asked, in silent.

I still think it’s too risky, Artie fretted.

“You have a better idea?”

Silence. Stretched out to a pause. Rachel studied Martin and the empty space over his shoulder.

No, Artie said regretfully. I don’t like it one damned bit. But we need help. Go for it.

“And my full name is Martin,” Martin said to Rachel.

“Martinus,” Rachel said, thoughtfully. “Roman. Not a popular name choice in Carthage.”

Martin said nothing and waited.

“Why am I alive?” Rachel asked.

“Plague bacillus,” Martin said, and pointed to the beer jar in her hand, “responds very well to tetracycline.”

She looked at the jars, then up at Martin.

“You’re not just brewing beer. You’re culturing antibiotics.”

Martin shrugged.

“It grows in the beer if you start with the right grain harvested with the right soil fungi. And they like a beer buzz here as much as they did when I was in school. It brings them back to me after they go on a hunt or out to gather. People talk when they’re all together and a little drunk. I learn things and, hell, I can’t be everywhere, all the time. Think of it as a force multiplier.”

And if we go to all the trouble of grooming the locals, we want to keep them alive. It’s a nasty world out there. Lots of ways to catch an infection. So when our special people leave us, they always take some of our special beer, Artie added.

“Son of a bitch,” Rachel said.

“Which brings us back to you,” Martin said smoothly. “Why did something like the plague bite you? Where’s your artie?”

Rachel went silent for a moment. Her expression changed. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Her eyes seemed to glisten, as if she was trying not to cry.

This is not fair, Artie protested, in silent. She’s still sick. Her defenses are down. You just got her real name, you just told her your own name. Everything you’re doing reminds her of home.

“Life isn’t fair,” Martin replied, in silent.

Damn it, boy! You’re offering her hope. And we don’t have any hope to offer!

Rachel touched her head, gently, with her fingers.

“My artie was modeled after my mother. They hurt her when they found her. They made me listen while they did it.”

Bastards.

“Then they changed her base code and kept the key. I can’t talk to her, she can’t talk to me. It’s like we’re in separate black boxes. They promised they’d bring her back, give me the key, if I did what they wanted.” She looked up at Martin. “They keep their word, in a way. When I go uptime to Qart-hadast, they wake her up, let me talk to her again. Let her work on me, to keep me young.”

But they never give you the key, do they? She repairs you, then they turn her off and tell you you’re going back downtime and unless you do what you’re told, you’ll never see her again, Artie said. He sounded cold, distant, calm.

Furious.

“So she’s not here, now, to keep you alive,” Martin said. “When you’re back here, you’re on your own.”

“Yes.”

“Artie?” Martin asked in silent.

I can break any encryption, Artie replied confidently, in silent. Might take a while but, yes, I’ll see what I can do.

“How long is a while?” Martin asked, in silent.

A while, Artie repeated, testily, in silent. And the more you distract me, the longer it takes.

“How long have they been doing this to you?” Martin asked Rachel.

“I leaked over to this timeline about a hundred biological years ago. It was a rough ride. I thought I was going to go… away. But I came through. To here and now. The Kehin detected me, grabbed me, brought me forward to Carthage. They call it by its Phoenician name, Qart-hadast. The name that Rome trampled in the dust.”

“Why did they keep you alive?”

Rachel sat up and saw her things, laid out neatly beside her. She watched Martin warily, then reached over and touched her knife.

“You know quantum mechanics?”

Martin smiled.

“As well as anyone. God and dice and all that.”

Rachel smiled. She picked up her knife.

“A long time from now, a little over eleven thousand years that way,” Rachel vaguely pointed forward with the knife, “a physicist named Aharonov is going to do a double slit experiment, to determine whether a photon is a wave or a particle.”

“That’s been done before,” Martin said, puzzled. “It’s both, depending on which slit a person observes.”

“Aharonov is going to use a special twist,” Rachel said. “Delayed choice. And he’s going to show that a choice made in the future can impact the past.”

If the future can affect the past, then one philosophical argument is settled, Artie said, thoughtfully, in open. There is predestination. Everyone has a given fate. There is no such thing as free will.

Rachel nodded. She held out the knife.

“The detector is in the handle. It only works if I run it. It apparently has to match up with someone from its home timeline. That’s me,” she said. “The Carthaginians have been unable to replicate it, so they keep me alive. If I use it on their time travelers I can detect when their future and their present are starting to get out of synch. I warn them and they leave.”

“And if they don’t leave?” Martin asked.

“They get more and more uncertain and then… they’re gone.”

I’ve got the reference in our library, Artie said. He sounded puzzled. Aharonov’s claims caused a little stir in our timeline. Then our theorists fussed over it, extended quantum theory, found it was a misinterpretation, equipment error, the usual.

“That’s your timeline,” Rachel said. “Not here.”

“Try it on me,” Martin said. Rachel shrugged. She pointed the knife at Martin. She expression went absent for a moment, then she was back. She frowned. She pointed the knife away, then pointed it at herself, then back at Martin.

“It must be broken,” she said, puzzled. “It works with me. A little fuzzy, not as good as usual, but it doesn’t work with you. I’m not getting anything.”

I don’t know whether to be happy or upset, Artie said in silent.

“Shut up.”

We still don’t have a future.

A week went by. Rachel tried to argue her way out of the hut. Artie held firm.

Photo-sensitivity is a side affect of tetracycline. And I’ve been giving you a big dose, he warned. I don’t want you stumbling around outside, blinded by the sun. So sit your ass down in here and do something useful!

Rachel made a face. She glanced, unenthusiastically, at the bowl of cold wheat gruel and the other bowl of chewed-up starter mash next to it.

“I am sick of—!”

Besides, Artie interrupted smoothly, I want to make sure you and everything you own is thoroughly de-loused and de-flead. I’m sorry, but the last thing we can handle is an epidemic in the camp. Too many people coming and going. Martin does what he has to do, when there is an epidemic, but he gets upset. Disposing of the children’s bodies bothers him the most. Brings back memories I can’t erase.

Rachel shut her mouth. She thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. She reached for the gruel.

“I still need clothes,” Rachel said firmly. She glanced at Martin, working on the other side of the hut. “I can’t stay in here naked or only wrapped in a blanket. And most of Martin’s clothes will definitely not fit.”

Use Ianna’s old things, Artie suggested.

“They’re too short on me!”

Modesty, Artie said, exasperated, is one of the stupidest bio concepts in a long, long line of stupid ideas. If Martin had wanted to—

“Artie.”

What?

“Shut up,” Martin said. He turned to Rachel. “I can get you new clothes. I’m not good at making them, but I’ll trade with Asherah. Might take a couple of days.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said. She hesitated, looked down at her blanket, then over at Ianna’s clothes, neatly folded and stacked in the back of the hut.

“I suppose, in the meantime, if I have to,” she said grudgingly. She looked shyly at Martin. “She won’t mind? You won’t mind?”

“It will be fine,” Martin assured her. He stood, pulled aside the night drape and the outside curtain. “I’ll just step outside while you try them on.”

Bio’s!

And on the eighth day—

“Let her go,” Martin ordered, exasperated. Rachel paced back and forth inside the hut like a caged animal. A caged animal in very short clothing. Martin shifted uncomfortably.

Fine, Artie said grudgingly. Everything we could find is piled up next to the canopy.

Rachel escaped gratefully. Outside she blinked at the sunlight, even under the shade from the canopy, until her eyes adjusted. Then she spotted her things.

Or what was left of them.

Her tent was in pieces, ripped and torn and useless. A pair of shoes. Her bandeau. A broken spear, flint tip gone.

“The storm got worse after I got you,” Martin apologized as he exited the hut after her. They stood together, side by side, over the pathetic little pile. “We found what we could but we were busy with you and, well…”

“It’s all right,” she said. She reached down, touched the bandeau.

It’s safe, Artie assured her. I killed all the little flea bastards. And their eggs. And their eggs eggs.

She picked it up, stood, and fastened the bandeau in place around her neck. The fibers were ragged, worn and frayed, but it felt right when it settled into place on top of her breasts. She glanced at Martin. He seemed awkward, uncertain.

“I suppose you have to go now.”

She seemed just as clumsy and hesitant.

“The Kehin will expect me to come back,” she agreed. “But…”

“What?”

“Sometimes I stay longer, after I’ve told everyone else to evacuate,” she said, in a rush. “The uncertainty grows because some event, something key to their timelines, is about to occur. Even though all the Travelers here are from congruent lines, it’s still a center of uncertainty.”

“But you’re not from this timeline,” he said slowly.

“Exactly. It might cause them uncertainty but it does nothing to me. Still, I don’t dare change anything or I might lose the timeline where the Kehin can unlock Mom. So I just stay here, quiet and out of the way, and record. Sometimes I earn a reward and they give us extra time together.”

I have an—, Artie said in silent.

“Shut up,” Martin said. He turned to Rachel.

“Stay,” Martin said, impulsively. Suddenly he felt it again, the loneliness he kept pushed away, like he had that night so long, long ago. Back when the stars looked so much different than they did now and he realized he would have to live his way home.

“Stay? I can’t. My tent, my supplies… I have nothing.”

“Stay here. In the hut. With me.”

“With you?”

“Yes,” Martin said. He gestured helplessly. “I need someone who can help me with the beer and the flints and mashing the wheat and—”

“Hush,” she said. She stepped closer to him, but not close enough to touch. “I’ll stay. But just for a few days.”

Martin smiled.

“But just for a few days,” she warned, and smiled back at him.

All right, what’s your idea? I admit it, I’m all out of if-then, even in random mode.

It was months later. Martin sat outside the camp, on the crest of a ridge where he could see across the valley and up the hill to the temple on top of Gobekli Tepe. He absently chewed a long piece of rye grass.

“Let me see Gobekli, again.”

Artie shifted his vision to binocular mode.

Gobekli Tepe’s latest incarnation was almost finished. The Tall Men, giant T-shaped pillars, twenty five feet high, solid limestone blocks, carved with shapes in bas-relief, were almost set into place facing each other. The benches facing the open area between the tall men were ready. The smaller pillars, arranged in a circle around the Tall Men, were up. Thatch and wooden poles, to make and support the roof, lay in piles, ready to be assembled and cover the whole temple once the tall men were ready.

The entrance was still a wooden framework, a skeleton of lashed-together branches and limbs. It was deliberately short—to make everyone duck and lower their heads—and winding. When it was ready it would become a corridor, covered with layers of hides to make a darkened tunnel with just enough torches and openings to see a step or two ahead. The idea, one of the priests had told him after a night of drinking, was to have people experience the darkness of death and dying before they entered the temple to celebrate and honor their own dead.

It was almost time for the tribes to gather and the ceremonies to begin.

You want to go to the temple and work the crowds? One more time?

“No,” Martin said decisively. “How many times have we tried that? How many hundreds of years? It’s never there. Too many people, too much going on, too hard to figure out what to do. I’m sick of searching Gobekli. It never works.”

But we know it comes through Gobekli on its way to Carthage, Artie argued.

“Agreed,” Martin said. “Every trail we’ve followed shows it comes through here. But despite everything we’ve tried, the Qart-hadast Travelers still come back here from the future every few months. If we had broken the chain, they wouldn’t come back. So we haven’t done the job right yet.”

Martin shook his head.

“The camp is the key,” Martin said, stubborn and determined. “The people come here, to the camp. This is the key, not Gobekli. It spreads out from here and eventually ends up in Carthage.”

Even if this is the change locus, what good does it do us? Artie asked, despairingly. When the temple is dedicated, when the Tall Men are set in place, all the tribes will flow in here with their dead. Thousands of people. It’s even worse than searching up at the temple. Too many people and too crowded. How the hell do we find it?

“We need to make it look for us. A honey trap is the best idea.”

I don’t like it.

“You don’t have to like it. You just have to tell me if your if-then thinks it will work.”

Martin sat quietly on the hillside. He finished the rye grass straw, tossed it aside, picked another and started chewing fresh.

Before him were plains and rolling hillsides, green and fertile, fresh with rain, crossed with small streams, dotted with marshes. A flock of goats, a small herd of gazelle. The plains of Edin.

“Maybe I should change my name to Eve,” he asked thoughtfully.

Wrong sex, Artie said. And even worse attitude.

“Answer?”

Maybe, Artie said, thoughtfully. My if-then says maybe your idea will work. But you know what that maybe means?

“I know,” Martin said, morosely. He licked his lips, moved his jaw back and forth.

More beer.

“Rachel can help us,” Martin said. He did not look happy. “More wheat gruel. More starter mash.”

If you want to build a trap, you have to bait it…

“So we concentrate here this time.”

Beer. And Rachel’s knife.

Artie went silent. Martin imagined the code, all the if-then spinning around if-then, subroutines chasing subroutines, with random changes thrown in, evolved in, evolved out…

And what if you do find it? Artie asked. If we do what we have to do, all the Qart-hadast timelines, all the Travelers from those futures, are going to shift away. You’ll be alone again. And what about Rachel? She must have some small connection to these timelines, or she never would have made it here. Are you going to just use her and then let her, maybe… go away? Damn it, Martin, if she’s linked to Qart-hadast she won’t even get to say goodbye to her mother!

“Are the needs of the one,” Martin asked, “more important than the needs of the many?”

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m asking you. That’s exactly what my if-then wants to know.

Martin stared at Gobekli. Even at full magnification, the priests and the slaves seemed like tiny little ants, unimportant, something to be brushed away and ignored. Not something important. Not something like himself.

“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.

Martin reached to the side, picked up a different trough. He placed it in front of both his customers and handed a pair of rye grass straws to Enki and Nilik.

“On the house,” he said. He sat down and slid his own straw into the beer. It tasted much like he remembered a wine cooler from uptime, sweet and sour, bubbly with a honey blur. There was also a slight metallic taste from tetracycline.

“Enki tells me you trade for wheat,” Nilik said after the first few sips.

“I do,” Martin said. He waved behind and around him. “I’m a flint knapper—”

“—best one in camp!” Enki boasted. And sipped more beer.

“—and I brew on the side,” Martin continued. Nilik studied him for a moment, took another sip of beer. He nodded slightly.

“I need a new knife. And a fresh spear point,” Nilik said.

“I need wheat. And honey and grapes,” Martin answered.

Nilik shook his head.

“No grapes. Some honey, but I didn’t bring it with me.”

“What did you bring with you?”

Nilik pulled the pouch off his belt and set it on the table. Martin unstrung the top, looked inside and spilled some of the wheat into his palm.

“Artie?” Martin asked, in silent.

Triticum monococcum—einkorn wheat, Artie said. Give me a minute. Maybe, maybe—

Rachel hurried back under the canopy. She smiled automatically at Enki and Nilik and stooped to whisper in Martin’s ear.

“Trouble.”

He looked up at her. She pointed uphill.

Ianna and two other people, a man and a woman, walked downhill. Ianna was on point, like a scout, leading the way. The man and woman were hard-faced, strongly built and tall. They looked uncomfortable in skin clothing. No one got in their way.

Well, they don’t quite fit in, do they? All they need is little plastic earpieces and dark suits and glasses.

“The Secret Service doesn’t exist yet,” Martin said drily, in silent, to both of them.

Enforcers are enforcers, Artie said with an electronic shrug. Frumentarii or KGB or Inquisitors. The look is always the same.

“Chayil,” Rachel pointed at the woman. “And Kehin,” she pointed at the man.

How’s the causality?

Rachel touched her knife and stood up straight. She smiled, friendly, at Nilik and Enki.

“Off the charts,” she said calmly, in silent. “It must have drawn them here. Something big is ready to go, one way or the other.”

And we have a match! Artie shouted. Sodium transporter gene TmHKT1;5-A. Son of a bitch, Martin. We found it.

“Kill it,” Martin ordered, in silent. “All of it. Everything in this bag.”

Martin felt a slight vibration in his arm and ultraviolet flickered at the edge of his vision. His hand flashed warmer, just for a moment.

Done.

“Now infect Nilik.”

Martin felt his arm tingle. He reached out, casually, and moved his straw to a different part of the beer trough. He accidentally touched Nilik’s hand.

And… we have liftoff. Nilik is now infected with the pesticide 5-a gene killer virus, Artie said. Doesn’t hurt people but it loves your intestinal tract. He’ll be so full of pesticide by the time he gets home that he’ll kill every 5-a in his camp and every patch of it he goes near back at Lake Van.

“We won’t get it all,” Rachel said, regretfully, in silent. “Some of it will survive.”

“Some,” Martin agreed, also in silent. He glanced at Ianna and her posse. They were closing the distance to the hut. “My guess is the wheat with that gene is too dispersed to get it all. Enough will be left to be discovered one day in the far, far future. But we’re going to find out, right now, if we killed enough of it to make a timeline difference.”

“If I disappear…”

“Stay here, next to me. Artie, keep a link to her.”

It might not be enough…

“If anyone has a better idea—” Martin said, exasperated. It was an old argument from over the last few weeks. Rachel shook her head. Artie went carrier wave if-then blank for a moment, then back to normal. It was the best he could manage for a sigh.

Martin took a long drink of beer. At the end he almost gagged on some of the scum from the bottom of the trough. Enki looked at the trough, disappointed, then up at Martin, hopeful.

“Another beer for every sack of grain,” Martin said to Nilik. “A full honeycomb for a spear point.”

“Half a honeycomb for the spear point. One beer for every sack of grain,” Nilik countered, grudgingly.

Ianna and the Kehin and the Chayil were closer, pushing their way through the crowded paths. Martin wanted to grab Enki and Nilik and drag them away, to shove them out of the way, to kick them in the ass, to do anything to get them out of here—

“Done!” Martin agreed. He stood and held his hand open and up. Nilik looked surprised, then pleased. He placed his hand down and open. They shook.

“I need the grain and the honey as soon as you can get it,” Martin said. Ianna and the Carthaginians stepped under the canopy, stood next to Nilik and Enki.

“But—”

“Now.”

Enki and Nilik scowled, shrugged, then turned away and walked back into the crowd. Enki looked regretfully over his shoulder at Martin.

“Don’t forget me!”

Martin smiled and waved.

“Not bloody likely,” he said around his own smile.

“Mar, I’m sorry—”

“Quiet,” the Kehin man said to Ianna. His voice was low and soft and sharp. Martin remembered voices like that. Usually from people who wore uniforms with no rank insignia. Cheka, MSS, Kempeitai, Gestapo.

Like a snake, Artie said, in silent. Remember, back in that swamp…

“Get into them,” Martin ordered, in silent. “You know what we’re looking for. They might not have it exactly on them, but their weapons will use something similar. Break the encryption.”

“We’re still going up on uncertainty,” Rachel said, also in silent. Her voice was tight. She stood just behind and to the side of Martin. She held a flint knife.

“Don’t even think about it, little one,” the Chayil woman said. Up close she was much bigger than Rachel, almost as big as Martin. She sounded amused, contemptuous.

“Officers,” Martin said, politely.

“You are not Chayil,” the Kehin said. The Chayil nodded. Ianna just looked miserable.

“Never said I was,” Martin said, mildly.

“You implied it!” the Kehin hissed. He gestured at Ianna. “Not just this one. Others told us the same story. You implied and acted and misled.”

“How can I control what others believe? That’s your business, isn’t it? I would hate to interfere.”

“You’re a leaker,” the Kehin hissed. He stared at Rachel. “Just like that one.”

“I am a leaker,” Martin admitted.

“Uncertainty just jumped again,” Rachel said, in silent.

“When? Which timeline?” the Chayil asked.

I have it, Artie said triumphantly. Son of a bitch, I have it!

“Then use it, damn it!” Martin snapped, in silent. In the open, he leaned forward, hands on the table. The Kehin and the Chayil shifted a half step back, separated slightly, positioned themselves.

“I’m from a long time ago. And a long time forward,” Martin said. “And I’m not done yet.”

“Take him,” the Kehin ordered. The Chayil began to move forward. Martin stood, relaxed, but in position. The Chayil looked at him warily. Rachel stepped to the side and forward, toward the Kehin.

Done.

“Ianna,” Martin said, his eyes fixed on the Chayil. He pulled a small, tightly wound package from his belt, tossed it to Ianna.

“Jump home. Now!”

“Mar, I can’t leave you! I love—”

“Now!”

Ianna hesitated. Rachel waved the causality handle in her direction and nodded frantically.

“Last chance,” Rachel whispered. “Please…”

Ianna’s eyes widened. She nodded and flickered uptime.

The Kehin glanced at where Ianna had been. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed.

“Bitch! I’ll deal with her when we get back—”

“I don’t think so,” Martin said. He stood straight, dropped his fighting pose. “I don’t think you’ll ever see her again. I do wonder who and what you will see again. And when you’ll be.”

Nilik just reached his camp. He’s going through the wheat, putting it into sacks.

“Activate the gene killer.”

Now?

“Uncertainty just maxed out!” Rachel said.

“Now,” Martin said out loud. He spoke to the Kehin and the Chayil. “Goodbye.”

Activated.

The Kehin and the Chayil were gone.

Silence under the canopy. Rachel licked her lips and looked up at Martin. She touched herself, to make sure she was still real, then touched Martin.

Rachel, is that you, sweetheart?, a new voice asked.

“Mom?”

And a good time was had by all, Artie said smugly. I do believe we are going to be whending our way home tonight.

“The key was the salt resistant wheat,” Martin explained later that night. They sat around a fire outside the hut, the canopy tucked out of the way, the clear stars above them. Rachel rested comfortably against Martin, his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” Rachel confessed. Her mother AI was activated, working her biology, making repairs to both Rachel and Artie. Martin heard her, in the background, through Artie, clucking in disapproval, murmuring and soothing both of them.

“In our timelines, Carthage fought three wars against Rome. Each time, the Carthaginians lost. Mainly because they only had a limited amount of arable land. Starvation hurt them much more than it did the Romans,” Martin said.

“But here?” Rachel asked.

“Here the people of Qart-hadast had the same geography, with the salt flats and the Chatt al Djerid salt lake south of them. But here they also had salt-resistant wheat, descended from Nilik’s wheat, to grow on the salt plains. With that extra food, and Hannibal and Hasdrubal as generals, Carthage defeated Rome,” Martin explained.

“And now?”

“And now… I don’t know. The Carthaginian Travelers are gone from the camp. I don’t know who else is here instead. I don’t know the future of this timeline. But I know what it’s not going to be,” he said, and smiled.

This timeline is closer to what we’re all looking for, Artie said. Some of my self-repair algorithms work now.

“So now you’re not dying?”

I wouldn’t go that far, Artie said grudgingly. And Mom may have helped. A little.

“But can we now say that the rumors of your imminent demise were greatly exaggerated?”

I don’t know that reference.

“Then I’m not there yet,” Martin said. He looked up at the stars. “But I’m getting closer.”

The next day, Martin woke alone.

He dressed, stepped out of the hut. Rachel sat on a bench, a bowl of wheat gruel in her hand. She tipped her head toward another bowl. Martin picked it up, gratefully.

Her backpack, fully equipped, sat on the ground between her feet. He glanced at it, then over at her.

“I went forward last night, after you went to sleep,” she said.

“You wanted to see if you could go home?”

“Yes.”

“And?

Rachel shook her head. She ate another scoop of gruel.

“I can get closer, but then I’m blocked. Something is still wrong, uptime.”

Martin pointed to the pack on the floor.

“It’s not unpacked.”

“No.”

“You’re moving up there?”

Rachel put down her bowl.

“Yesterday, just before Artie unleashed the virus, you tossed something to Ianna.”

Martin hesitated, then shrugged.

“It was a bandeau, like the one you wear. She thought it had style, back when you told her to get out of here and go home. I had Asherah weave one for her.”

“One last present?”

“Something like that.”

“Because you always get what you want. Because you never give up. Which meant you had to leave her behind and you didn’t want her to forget you,” Rachel finished. She stood.

“I’m leaving for the same reason. I don’t want to get left behind, by anything you have to do back here. So I’m going uptime to wait for you. To me it will only be a few days. Mom says it will be easier to repair me, to keep me alive there. At least until you arrive.”

“Where is this place, this next roadblock of yours?” Martin asked.

“It’s named Catal Huyuk. It’s the first city in human history. Fascinating place,” Rachel said.

“Because it’s the first human city,” Martin said. He nodded. She looked at him, puzzled.

She shook her head.

“First cities,” she said and shrugged. “Not that interesting. Too many of them. First city in China, first city in India, first city in Aztlan. The usual traveler crowd in all of them. A lot different, but mostly the same.”

“In that case, what’s so interesting about this Catal place? Except that it’s as far as you can go.”

“No doors,” Rachel said. She adjusted her bandeau so it rested snugly, just above her breasts. “Thousands of people, and not a single door in the whole damned place. Just hatches and ladders and little, tiny, windows, way up high in the walls.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“Attracts Travelers like flies to honey. Always fresh data there,” Rachel said.

“When will you be there?”

“A week from Tuesday.”

Martin flicked Artie’s database.

“It’s over a hundred miles away from here.”

“That’s why I’ve got to start walking.”

Martin checked again. He dropped the connection.

“Catal peaks in 7000 BCE. That’s two thousand years from now.”

Rachel stepped forward, picked up her pack, and turned to leave camp. She looked back at him, over her shoulder.

“Then I suppose you better start living…”

A few minutes later, Martin filled his own backpack and stepped out into the sunshine.

And that’s it? Artie asked. We just leave the hut and the beer and everything else?

Martin shrugged.

“No archeologist never found any sign of permanent habitation anywhere around Gobekli Tepe, so we can’t stay here. A city might grow up around us. So, we leave. Enki and Asherah and Nilik can scavenge the hut and whatever is left. We can only use what we can carry. Everything else will gradually fall apart and rot and erode and be gone.”

And what are we going to do now? It’s not going to take us two thousand years to walk to Catal Huyuk. And I can’t see you sitting in one place for that long. What are we going to do in the meantime?

“I’ve always liked the water,” Martin said firmly. “The boat is already invented, but all the boats in all the world, right now, have to be paddled. Best evidence, though, is that sometime, in the next thousand or so years, someone, somewhere, is going to invent the sail. Maybe they’ll need a little help. And maybe some other people will need some help with some other ideas. Remember the old Japanese proverb Soichiro Honda used to use?”

It can’t be old, Artie grumbled. Japan hasn’t been invented yet. It’s just a bunch of starving people huddled in skin tents. And Honda’s not going to be born for another eleven thousand years!

Martin ignored him.

“‘Raise the sail with your stronger hand.’ Means you need to go after the opportunities where you can help the most.”

Martin started to walk down the hill, away from Gobekli Tepe.

“Now, Artie,” he said, and his voice faded away as he walked, “I see a whole world of opportunity out here for us. Yes, sir, a whole big world…”