Up The Line

61.

At quarter to four on that very familiar night in 1204 I went once more up the stairs of the inn, this time with Sauerabend. Jud B paced restlessly just within the door of the room. He brightened at the sight of my captive. Sauerabend looked puzzled at the presence of two of me, but he didn’t dare say anything.

“Get inside,” I said to him. “And don’t monkey with your goddam timer or you’ll suffer for it.”

Sauerabend went in.

I said to Jud B, “The nightmare’s over. We grabbed him, took away his timer, put a regulation one on him, and here he is. The whole operation took just exactly four hours, right?”

“Plus who remembers how many weeks of running up and down the line.”

“No matter now. We got him back. We start from scratch.”

“And there’s now an extra one of us,” Jud B pointed out. “Do we work that little deal of taking turns?”

“We do. One of us stays with these clowns, takes them on down to 1453 as scheduled, and back to the twenty-first century. The other one of us goes to Metaxas’ villa. Want to flip a coin?”

“Why not?” He pulled a bezant of Alexius I from his pouch, and let me inspect it for kosherness. It was okay: a standing figure of Alexius on the obverse, an image of Christ enthroned on the reverse. We stipulated that Alexius was heads and Jesus was tails. Then I flipped the coin high, caught it with a quick snap of my hand, and clapped it down on the back of my other hand. I knew, from the feel of the concave coin’s edge against my skin, that it had landed heads up.

“Tails,” said the other Jud.

“Tough luck, amigo.” I showed him the coin. He grimaced and took it back from me.

Gloomily he said, “I’ve got three or four days left with this tour, right? Then two weeks of layoff, which I can’t spend in 1105. That means you can expect to see me showing up at Metaxas’ place in seventeen, eighteen days absolute.”

“Something like that,” I agreed.

“During which time you’ll make it like crazy with Pulcheria.”

“Naturally.”

“Give her one for me,” he said, and went into the room.

Downstairs, I slouched against a pillar and spent half an hour rechecking all of my comings and goings of this hectic night, to make sure I’d land in 1105 at a non-discontinuous point. The last thing I needed now was to miscalculate and show up there at a time prior to the whole Sauerabend caper, thereby finding a Metaxas to whom the entire thing was, well, Greek.

I did my calculations.

I shunted.

I wended my way once more to the lovely villa.

Everything had worked out perfectly. Metaxas embraced me in joy.

“The time-flow is intact again,” he said. “I’ve been back from 1100 only a couple of hours, but that was enough to check up on things. Leo Ducas’ wife is named Pulcheria. Someone named Angelus runs the tavern Sauerabend owned. Nobody here remembers a thing about anything. You’re safe.”

“I can’t tell you how much I—”

“Skip it, will you?”

“I suppose. Where’s Sam?”

“Down the line. He had to go back to work. And I’m about to do the same,” Metaxas said. “My layoff’s over, and there’s a tour waiting for me in the middle of December, 2059. So I’ll be gone about two weeks, and then I’ll be back here on—” He considered it. “—on October 18, 1105. What about you?”

“I stay here until October 22.” I said. “Then my alter ego will be finished with his post-tour layoff and will replace me here, while I go down the line to take out my next tour.”

“Is that how you’re going to work it? Turns?”

“It’s the only way.”

“You’re probably right,” said Metaxas, but I wasn’t.